


Lost in Translation

by EdgarAllenPoet



Series: Dads of Marmora [10]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Reality, Before they go through the portal, Canon-Typical Violence, Episode: s3e27 The Hunted, Everything Hurts, Galra Keith (Voltron), Gen, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Keith goes through a different portal, Prisoner of War, Temporary Amnesia, but here we are, dads of marmora, just mild concussion level amnesia yknow?, this wasn't supposed to be a hurt comfort fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2018-12-31 13:43:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12133743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdgarAllenPoet/pseuds/EdgarAllenPoet
Summary: "Keith shook his head, not knowing how to communicate that he didn’t understand him.  Kolivan’s face turned to stone."





	1. Not With You

Everyone’s voices were ringing off like sirens through the Black Lion’s comms.  They crashed together, words almost indistinguishable but message clear- panic, fustration, _fear_.  Keith was leaving them behind and they weren’t keeping up, getting lost in his tail winds.  Keith was being left behind too.  Lotor was kicking up dust in their faces, mocking them, rubbing in every mistake and playing a sickening game of cat and mouse.

 

It wasn’t a game Keith wanted to lose.

 

Keith was the Black Paladin.  Keith didn’t want to be the Black Paladin.  He would have willingly handed the job over to someone else.  He wasn’t ready.  He wasn’t made for this.  Shiro was wrong.

 

He wasn’t fast enough.  Black was big and clunky and slow, and she wasn’t talking to him.  Somewhere behind him Lance was flying Red, entirely out of control.  He didn’t know how Lance got there.  He didn’t know if Red was talking to him either.

 

Blue was being piloted by Allura, who apparently was trained to excel at everything _except_ piloting.  The two of them were an even bigger mess than Keith and Black.  They couldn’t keep up, but Keith couldn’t slow down.  Lotor was getting away, and Keith was _not_ about to let him win.

 

“Come _on!_ ” he growled to Black, slamming the controls down.  She jolted forward, picking up speed.  The cacophony of his panicking teammates became a roar of white noise falling on deaf ears.  He couldn’t breathe, he could barely think beyond the mantra of “go! go! go!” He pushed harder, felt Black hesitate under his commands, and longed for the Red Lion.

 

Lotor’s ship was getting closer in front of him while the paladins got smaller and smaller.  They’d forgive him later, when he proved he was right about this.

 

Lead, follow, or get out of the way.

 

Lotor drew closer.  Keith pressed harder.

 

He was right on his tail and then… blinding light.  Black crashed into a wall of it, jerking violently.  Everything went white as Keith yanked back and blindly groped at the controls, struggling to reverse their path, get them out of the portal.  This was like a wormhole but worse, like a vacuum.  It felt like the corrupted wormhole Haggar’s magic had gotten them lost in.  It felt like every dream of falling Keith had every had.

 

They couldn’t get out.  Black couldn’t move.  The cockpit was dark and the emergency lights weren’t coming on.  The gravity systems gave way and only the G-forces kept Keith rooted in his seat.  He slammed his hand on the side of his helmet to close it, because a dead lion meant no oxygen, and Keith was _not_ dying today.

 

Even the simple act of moving his arm was labrous.  He was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of light, everywhere, surrounding him, swallowing him whole.  He was drowning in it.  His ears rang, and his vision danced with black spots.  The last thing he heard before as they flew through the portal was a deep, protective growl and a panicked voice.

 

_“Keith!  Keith!?  Where did he go!?”_

 

…

 

_Several Quintents Ago_

 

...

 

“He could be anywhere out there.”

 

If Ulaz wasn’t trained to have a calm demeanor and unshakable resolve, the sudden voice calling to him from the shadows in an otherwise empty hanger would have startled a jump out of him.  As it was, his heartrate barely picked up pace.  He turned and calmly regarded the man whose voice was given.

 

Ah, of course Thace would be the one to follow him.

 

Ulaz had been hoping to leave alone.

 

“Kolivan does not approve of this,” Thace warned, stepping out of the shadows and crossing the room.  His feet made no sound against the metal flooring.  He’d always been better at espionage than Ulaz had.

 

Ulaz hardened his gaze and raised his chin in defiance.  “He is just as much Kolivan’s cub as he is ours,” he said.  He’d thought about this long and hard, preparing his arguments beforehand.  “Kolivan will forgive me when I bring him home.”

 

Thace’s expression fell at that, ears drooping.  There was a deep sadness rooted in him, rooted in all of them, ever since the disappearance.

 

“Where will you even begin to look?” Thace asked in a broken voice.  “We haven’t _heard anything_.  We have no idea if he even reached his destination, and there’s light years between there and here.”

 

Thace was pleading.  Ulaz was not listening to reason.  He stepped forward, placing him and Thace chest to chest, eye to eye.  He narrowed his own and spoke.  “I cannot sit by and do nothing.”

 

“He is strong and intelligent,” Thace argued.  “He will find his way home to us.”

 

Ulaz wanted to believe that, he just couldn’t seem to force himself.

 

“He will find his way home,” Ulaz agreed.  “I will guide him.”

 

He stepped away from Thace and picked his container of resources off the ground.  Enough food rations to keep him going, a medical kit so that he’d be prepared for any situation he found their cub in.

 

Thace’s desperation grew with every step Ulaz took towards his ship.  “This is a suicide mission!” Thace called after him, loud enough that Ulaz worried they’d catch notice of whoever was guarding the base that evening.  “You could get yourself exiled!”

 

“Will you report me to Kolivan?” Ulaz asked, setting his box on board and hopping down to the main level once more.  Thace standing there made him hesitant to leave, but his duty went beyond the Blade of Marmora.  His duty was to his son.

 

“They will find out shortly enough on their own.”

 

“They will not be pleased that you failed to stop me.”

 

The faintest shadow of a grin came over Thace’s face.  “They can get over it.”

 

Even in the darkest of times, humor can be found, it seemed.  Ulaz chuckled quietly to himself and opened his arms up, surprised when Thace stepped immediately into them and clutched onto his back like a small child.  “Stay safe,” he whispered.  “Bring him home.”

 

“On my honor,” Ulaz whispered back, nuzzling into Thace’s fur and hoping that last gesture of affection would be enough to get him through.  

 

Thace stepped back, bowed his head, and said, “Be at peace.”  Permission.  A _blessing_.

 

Ulaz returned the nod and returned to his ship.  He’d bring their cub home to them.  He had no other choice.  Despite his attempt to prevent Ulaz from leaving, he knew Thace wanted this just as much as he did.  

 

He was older- experienced.  He could find his way through the darkness of space and return home guided by the stars- he’d done so a hundred times before.  

 

He’d find him.  He’d bring him home.  He had no other choice.

 

He gave a nod to Thace through the window, revved the ship’s engine into action, and rocketed out of the Blade of Marmora hanger.  

 

They’d have his head for this, but he wasn’t coming back empty handed.

 

He couldn’t.

 

He couldn’t afford to fail.

  
  


…

_Present_

...

 

When Keith woke up he was made of lead.  Pounding, his head was pounding out of control, threatening to pop his eyeballs out of his skull and have them fall into his lap.  They burned like fire, and when he found the willpower to drag open his eyelids, his vision was fogged with red.

 

He tried to speak, talk to his lion or the comms or _something_ and ask what the fuck had just happened, but his throat was dry and aching, his tongue heavy.  His words came out as a unintelligible groan.  His mouth tasted like ash, like that time he’d tried smoking when he was fifteen.  His stomach felt like he’d swallowed it.

 

He tried seeing again, and while his eyes still burnt and ached, he was able to make out the cockpit.  The Black Lion- oh right, how could he forget about that?  He rolled his head to the side and found an aching crick in his neck.  His arm was heavy and sore when he lifted it to rub at the pain.  All of him felt like a bruise.

 

Pain erupted in the base of his skull when loud voices broke through the silence.  Somebody was shouting, but the words didn’t make sense.  Keith clenched his eyes shut against the pain.  His stomach tossed from it, threatening to send bile up his throat and make him even more miserable.  He swallowed it down, almost swallowing his tongue in the process.

 

The voice shouted again, more sounds that didn’t make sense.  There were several voices yelling at once.  Keith groped around blindly for his bayard.

 

Missing- great.  Nowhere to be found.  Keith unsheathed his knife from his belt and fought his way upright.  His side screamed at him, feeling like he’d been run through with his own sword.  Keith was too scared to look and see if there was any accompanying blood.

 

His legs shook underneath him, his head head spun and throbbed, and stomach his stomach rolled, but he made it out of the cockpit and into the mouth of the Black Lion in an appropriate amount of time.

 

Outside of Black, a light source shone like a million suns.  The jagged rocks of wherever he’d landed were purple and achingly familiar.  He clung to one of Black’s bottom teeth for support and glared at his surroundings, knife held out in front of him just in case.

 

The masks… the uniforms…. Keith’s heart just about stopped.  

 

A familiar figure stepped forward, blade falling to his side as he pulled his mask up off his face, expression painted in confusion.  Keith could have cried with relief.

 

“Kolivan…” he murmured, just as the world began to spin and tip sideways, vision fading to black.  He felt himself falling, and another shout ripped open his head in pain.

 

“Akira!” they yelled, but that wasn’t a word.  With very little control left to him at this point, Keith decided not to worry about it.  That was the last thought he had as his consciousness faded.

 

…

 

Seconds later Keith’s consciousness returned to him.  It came slowly, as if limping with old age and injury, and Keith let it take its time, as one by one his senses returned to him.

 

Pain.  Pain was first, in his aching legs and burning side, and then in his head.  

 

Pain, then pressure.  There was something tight around both of his wrists and ankles, and something wrapped around his upper arm and _pulsing_.  There was the pressure of something soft beneath him, and of something else covering him.  A blanket?  Maybe he’d found the spare in Black’s storage.

 

Another familiar sensation joined the others as Keith found control of his ears and eyes again.  A tongue ranking over his hair and smoothing it down.  God damn it.  Keith groaned and pulled his head away.

 

“Stop it,” he grumbled.  His tongue felt like sand.  “Get offa me….”  He wasn’t delirious enough to have the patience for grooming, and it was going to make his hair do all kinds of stupid things.  He’d never hear the end of it, but Kolivan and Antok were never going to get over their grooming tendencies.

 

The person next to him stirred and moved away, taking with him the heat that Keith hadn’t realized he’d been leaning into.  He blinked his eyes open to figure out what was going on and was only met with more confusion.

 

That… that was neither Kolivan nor Antok.  This Galra had a thick head of purple hair standing straight and blending in with his ears, which made him look a little bit like Wolverine.  His face was younger than Kolivan’s, unwrinkled for the most part, and just as dark as the rest of him.  He was thin with broad shoulders and bright eyes, and he had cheekbones that could cut steel.

 

He looked familiar, and once again Keith was overcome with a heavy sense of deja vu.

 

The room they were in didn’t jog his memory at all.  It was dark, but medical.  Everything seemed sanitized and perfectly clean, like that time he’d fallen off the repel wall on the Garrison obstacle course and woke up in the medical wing.  This wasn’t any kind of room on Earth, though.  At least it seemed to be oxygenated, based on the fact that he was, y’know, still alive.

 

The familiar Galra’s mouth moved as he said something in a language that was growling and incomprehensible.  Keith blinked once, twice, and moved to push himself into a sitting position.  That’s when he found his arms tied.

 

He scowled at the bands, then up at the Galra, panicking bubbling in his gut.  “You tied me down?” he asked, tugging against his restraints.  His side protested with a sharp, blinding pain.  He collapsed limply on the bed with a surprised cry and watched the Galra’s eyes widen with concern.  

 

He stepped forward, placed a gentle hand on Keith’s side, and spoke again.  Some of the sounds made sense, like they could almost belong to an Earth language.  The Galra spoke, glared at Keith when he didn’t respond to whatever it was he was saying, and then added a question.  “Akira?” he asked.  A memory lit up in the back of Keith’s mind.

 

Someone had said that when he’d been leaving Black.  “Akira?” he asked.  The Galra’s forehead creased with panic.  He picked his eyes up and looked towards the door, yelling something.  “... Kolivan…!”

 

Keith perked up, shifted to get the Galra’s attention.  “Kolivan!” he said.  “Are we are the Blade of Marmora?  My translator must be broken.”

 

The Galra blinked at him blankly, no understanding in his gaze.  Keith looked down at himself and realized his translator wasn’t broken, it was _missing_.  His armor and battle suit had been replaced with some sort of hospital gown.

 

That’s fine.  Kolivan knew they needed the translator to communicate.  He’d fix this.

 

But the Kolivan that walked through the door was not the one Keith recognized.  Sure, the face was the same, but the scars decorating it were different.  His hair was kept short instead of the long braid he’d worn before.  When had he cut it?  More importantly, when had he returned to the Blade of Marmora headquarters?

 

If that _was_ where they were.  Keith wasn’t actually sure.

 

There was something weird in Kolivan’s expression as he hesitated by the door and looked Keith over.  He spoke, but just like the other guy his words were nonsense.  Keith shook his head, not knowing how to communicate that he didn’t understand him.  Kolivan’s face turned to stone.

 

Whatever he’d said before, he repeated with more fervor.  The Galra to Keith’s right gasped quietly, expression crumpling, as Kolivan began to shout.

 

This wasn’t the shouting that Keith was used to, which could be commanding or worried or lecturing, or all three at once.  This wasn’t even angry shouting.  His voice cracked on certain words, and it leaked with absolute devastation.

 

Weird.  Keith was normally so bad at reading emotions and social cues, but even with the language barrier, the ones he was picking up now read like plain english.

 

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I don’t understand.”

 

Kolivan stepped forward, screaming, and Keith flinched back as far as his bonds would allow.  But then the other Galra was stepping between them, hands on Kolivan’s chest to hold him back.  Another figure appeared in the doorway, looming and mysterious.  Keith almost didn’t recognize him without his mask on, or without the horrifying scar that was supposed to decorate half of his face.  Antok.

 

Kolivan shouted again, words on fire.  “... Akira!  …. _Akira!?_ ”

 

What the hell was that?  An order?  A name?  Why did Keith recognize that word but nothing else.  He shook his head, entirely at a loss.  Kolivan glowered at him, lip pulling back in a growl, before shoving his handlers away and storming out of the room.

 

Keith’s head was swimming, nausea haunting him from the pain he felt _everywhere_.  The Galra he’d woken up with left without a second glance, and then it was only him and Antok.  Keith swallowed around the lump in his throat and spoke.  “Antok?”  He recoiled like Keith had stabbed him.  Keith felt his eyes burn.  “Please… what’s going on?”

 

Antok turned and left without answer, closing the door behind him.  The lights shut off after he left, leaving Keith in near total darkness.  Between the dark and the silence, Keith couldn’t find the energy to keep himself awake.

 

…

 

The next time Keith woke up, it was to fingers in his mouth.  Acting reflexively to the surprising invasion of privacy, Keith snapped his jaw together and bit down.  Whoever he’d bitten gasped quietly, grunting a word for which the obvious meaning was "No!", and then promptly smacked him across the face.  Keith hissed in a breath through his teeth and tasted blood.  

 

Whether it was his own or the person he’d bitten’s, he couldn’t be sure.

 

When he opened his eyes, the Galra from earlier was frowning at him.  He said something, and Keith still had no idea what words were coming out of his mouth, but the message was pretty clear.  He was _scolding_ him.  Ridiculous.

 

Keith rolled his eyes and the Galra cut off mid-sentence.  His mouth fell open and he stared at Keith in what looked to be wonder.  He tapped his own forehead, then rolled his eyes the best somebody could when they didn’t have pupils.  Keith stared back blankly, narrowing his own eyes.  After a few seconds, the Galra sighed and seemed to give up.

 

He yanked the blankets off of Keith then, and Keith wanted to curl up defensively and hide, but the straps tethering him to the bed didn’t give him that option.  The hospital gown went down to his knees, at least.  While he felt entirely too vulnerable, at least he retained some of his dignity.

 

Not for long though.  The Galra (who really needed a name…  Reginald.  Perfect.  Named after Keith’s seventh grade art teacher) checked over Keith’s wrists and ankles, and pressed a bit at the still-pulsing band wrapped around Keith’s upper arm.  He felt at Keith’s neck, hands wary and face cautious like he expected Keith to try and bite him again.  To be fair, Keith probably would have if his fingers got close enough.  Then he pressed his palm flat to the center of Keith’s abdomen, felt at his chest and his stomach.  He moved his hand to Keith’s ribs, and Keith exploded once again in pain.  He was so surprised that he couldn’t quite manage to choke back a scream.

 

Reginald leaned back in surprise, looking Keith over with wide eyes.  Keith breathed through the pain with clenched teeth and blinked away the stinging in his eyes as he stared back at Reginald, and then he was moving again.

 

Keith found his hospital gown being yanked up with no way of stopping it, and the mortification of that alone would have killed him if he wasn’t too busy trying not to pass out from pain.  Reginald pressed lightly to his side, but even that was enough to set him on fire.  Keith writhed against his restraints, kicking and thrashing and trying to get _away._

 

Reginald said something, voice growling with command, but Keith was beyond listening.  It wasn’t long before Thace reached out and pinched something sharp in Keith’s neck, and that was that.  Keith was out like a light.

 

…

 

Keith slept and woke in fits and bursts after that.  Every time he woke again he was alone, but he had a few more delirious moments with memories of someone standing at his door.  He didn’t dream, but that didn’t make his wakeful periods feel less dream-like.

 

The time he did have awake he spent working.  Thinking was doing him no good.  He had no real idea where he was, and he had no memories of how he got there.  He’d been in Black… they’d been following Lotor… then what?  

 

Nothing.  Nada.  His mind was a blank slate.

 

This must have been how Shiro felt.  It was awful.

 

Instead of trying to figure out where he was, Keith started plotting his escape.  His armor and weapons were nowhere to be seen, but that wasn’t first priority.  He needed to get off of this damn bed.  He had no idea how long he’d been there- days?  weeks?  maybe only hours?  He didn’t remember going to the bathroom at all, though he’d woken once to someone cleaning him.  If Keith’s life could stop being a humiliating nightmare, that would be great- but either way, it was time to go.

 

Getting the wrist cuffs off was the hard part.  

 

It hurt like hell, a fiery, stabbing pain that made it almost impossible to breathe, but Keith managed to find the strength to sit up and then slump back over.  He could reach his wrists like that, and he spent what felt like hours tugging at the strap with his teeth and throwing watchful glances at the door.  His face ached where he’d gotten smacked earlier.  He didn’t want to think of what they’d do to him if they caught him trying to chew his way out of his bonds.

 

Whatever hell he had to face, he’d rather face it without the bondage, thank you very much.

 

Lance would probably think this was hilarious, he realized, and the chuckle that sparked made his side hurt, but the burst of morale gave him the energy to tug his wrist free.  

 

From there he was able to untie his other hand, and both of his ankles.  Leaning over like that had been pure hell, but it was worth it.  

 

He got himself up, out of bed, and ripped the weird pulsing alien tech off his arm.  It stung like a bitch, leaving pinpricks of blood in its wake, and Keith tossed it aside with a grimace.  Then he picked up what looked like a bedpan from a nearby counter and positioned himself behind the door.

 

….

 

Standing up was hard.  His muscles were weak and shaky, and his head was throbbing alarmingly.  He managed to make his way across the room and behind the door, where he stood and waited for somebody to come for him.

 

The armband he’d torn off must have been used to monitor him, because just minutes after he removed it, he heard footsteps coming down the hall.

 

Keith raised the heavy pan over his head and braced himself, and as soon as the door slid open he threw his arms down and conked his visitor over the head.

 

Reginald.  Big surprise.

 

Keith didn’t wait around to see what effect he had on the guy.  Instead he threw the pan to the ground, shoved off the wall behind him, and sprinted down the hallway as fast as his legs could carry them.  Plan… plan…. Shiro always had a plan.   Lance was always telling Keith he needed to make a plan.  Well Keith’s plan right now was to get his ass outside and handle the rest as he came.  Maybe the Black Lion would come for him.

 

Probably not. She didn’t exactly like him.

 

His legs felt like lead as he forced himself faster, and he wasn’t doing too bad, all things considered.  His mistake came when he glanced behind him at the sound of running feet, and that’s when he crashed right into a brick wall and knocked the wind out of himself.

 

It wasn’t a brick wall, though.  Brick walls didn’t follow you to the ground and press a blade against your throat.  They didn’t weigh four hundred pounds or have piercing glowing eyes.

 

They certainly didn’t look at you like their heart was breaking or say a phrase you’d heard a dozen times, enough that you recognized it in Galran as well as English.  Keith’s reaction to it was practically pavlovian.

 

“ _Be at peace_ ,” Antok said, stern like an order, natural language rolling on his tongue.  Keith forced himself to relax, breath coming back shakily but surely.  He stared back up at Antok, taking the glare away as a promise that he wasn’t going to fight him.

 

He’d learned to recognize when it was time to give up- ribs aching, head spinning, struggling to breathe and pinned under a massive, well-trained assassin?  Yeah, that was as good a sign as any.

 

Antok nodded once and stood, pulling Keith up with him, both of his wrists caught in the crushing grip of one of Antok’s claws.  Keith staggered to his feet and leaned back into him for support.  He knew it was stupid to trust these guys- there was obviously something weird going on far beyond his realm of understanding.  But he couldn’t help it.  He wanted to trust them.  He’d taken so long to learn how; he wasn’t ready to lose that.

 

Seconds later Reginald came running around the corner.  His expression was furious, and he whipped his head towards Keith and took a menacing step forward.

 

Antok immediately slipped his arm around Keith’s chest and swept him backwards, placing himself between the two.  Keith recognized very little of what they said.  “... _no_ …. _No Akira…._   _Don’t…_.”

 

That didn’t tell him much.  Akira?  Not Akira?  Who the hell was that anyways?

 

Some of the fury melted out of Reginald’s face, and after several long moments of hesitation he stepped closer.  He dropped onto his knees in front of Antok and tipped his head to the side, eyes on Keith.  Keith felt like a little kid peeking out behind his mother’s legs.  He gulped.

 

Reginald regarded him very seriously and planted a hand in the middle of his own chest.  “ _Thace_ ,” he said, one simple word.  He then pointed at Antok, looked at Keith again, and inclined his head in a question.  Keith stared back at him, confused.

 

Reginald repeated the process.  He pointed to himself, then he pointed at Antok.  Once again he said the same thing.  “ _Thace_.”  It sent off bells in Keith’s head, sparks of deja vu.  That word was so familiar.  Why was it so familiar?

 

On the third run through the guy was starting to look frustrated.  He poked at his own face, _“Thace_ ,” then gestured to Antok, saying something that lifted up like a question at the end.  

 

Oh.

 

 _Oh_.

 

Keith cleared his throat and glanced sideways at the large Galra.  “Antok…?” he said, asking, unsure if he was answering the question correctly, or if it was even a question at all.

 

It must have been.  The Galra’s face broke into a smile.  He nodded and gestured to himself.  “ _Thace_ ,” he said, then pointed at his associate.  “ _Antok_.”  Then he held out one extended finger and pointed right at Keith.

 

Right.  Keith had seen Tarzan.  He knew how to have this conversation.  

 

“Keith,” he answered, then just for good measure he shook his head and said, “Not Akira.”

 

Thace’s mouth pulled into a frown, and Antok made a sound that seemed confused.  Keith cleared his throat and tried again.  “Keith,” he repeated.  “ _No Akira._ ”  His mouth tripped and stumbled over the Galran words that didn’t quite fit right on his tongue.  

 

Thace reached out a slow hand and clasped it gently over Keith’s shoulder.  “ _... No Akira…”_ he agreed, adding words and syllables Keith couldn’t begin to understand.  But this was a step forward, at least.  They were getting somewhere.  

 

Keith had no idea where he was or how he’d gotten there, didn’t understand why the Blade of Marmora didn’t recognize him or why he hadn’t heard from Voltron yet.  But he had one vital piece of information, and the Blade of Marmora knew it too.

 

Keith was not Akira, whoever the hell that was.  Now they just had to figure out why.


	2. Hold Tight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “ 'Do you have any idea where you are?' he asked, and it was such a relief to hear Kolivan’s voice that Keith almost didn’t care about anything else.
> 
> But he had questions to answer. 'The Blade of Marmora Headquarters.' "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said I wasn't going to update this fast, but apparently I lied. Instead of paying attention in class, I drew up a plotline. Oops.

The lights were purple, halls metallic and cold.  Keith’s footsteps echoed with each step.  He was running. 

 

He had to turn off the ship’s power source.  He had to turn it off and get out of range before the whole system blew.  They were going to trap the Galra ship in a wormhole and go to town on their ass.  Keith wasn’t sure how he’d gotten there, but he knew what had to be done.  He knew that it was important.

 

They were putting an end to the Galra empire. 

 

“Stop wasting time!” Shiro’s voice barking in the comms. in his ear pulled Keith from his thoughts and got him back on focus.  Right.  Find the controls.  Shut down the power.  He had to hurry.  Shiro sounded impatient. 

 

He should have questioned why Shiro was there.  He knew, logically, that he should have been missing.  The thought was hard to hold onto, though.  It flittered around and slipped through his fingers, like the ideas were butterflies made of sand.

 

“I’m on it,” Keith answered back, and was answered by absolute silence.  That was strange, too.  There was almost always some faint buzz of static coming through the helmets.  The silence made him feel sick. 

 

Get in, get out.  Focus.  Right.  Keith had a job to do. 

 

And just like that he was standing in front of the control center, a huge desk with sprawling screens lit up in a language Keith didn’t understand. His eyes scanned the language, but it danced like worms on the screen.  Each word floated to him, a whisper or a shout of a voice growling things Keith couldn’t comprehend.  His panic grew.  He gripped at his head, found his helmet missing.  What?

 

“Go!” a voice shouted next to him, and Keith whipped around to look at him.  It was Thace, the Galra he’d recently met.  When had he gotten there? 

 

“Go!” Thace shouted again, and it felt like Keith was jumping time, running on a repeating record.  “I’ve done my part for the resistance.  Go and do yours.”

 

Someone was pounding on the doors.  They swelled like they were made of rubber, stretching like balloons.  Keith threw a panicked glance between Thace and the door.  Thace’s solemn expression was the only answer.  

 

“You’re going to blow this place up,” he realized out loud, and then there were hands on him.  Large, tight claws grabbed at his arms, his clothes, his neck.  They lifted him off his feet and tossed him over the edge while explosions lit the air on fire behind him.  Keith plummeted through the air, feeling suspiciously cold.  His stomach flew to his throat, his head spun, and his hands tingled from the nerve wracking sensation of free-falling.

 

He looked up as he fell, and he saw Thace staring down, watching over him.  He met Keith’s eyes and grinned, and that was when Keith woke up.

  
  
  


…

  
  


“He’s sick,” Antok stated, stepping back and removing his nose from where it’d been pressed to Keith’s forehead, checking for a fever.  While Antok had slowly become more and more involved with Akira as the cub grew older, it wasn’t often that he showed affection for anyone at all.  He certainly didn’t fret over illnesses or check for fevers.  Perhaps it was Akira’s disappearance that woke these instincts in the older Galra. 

 

Perhaps it wasn’t, but Thace didn’t have a better explanation.

 

The human in front of them stared up at them with wide, frightful eyes.  Thace could hear his heart pounding and could smell the salty scent of sweat on his skin.  His eyes settled on Thace and calmed, just slightly.  His mouth moved with a language Thace didn’t understand. 

 

The sounds were flat and round as they left Keith’s mouth, and they sounded vaguely similar to the language Akira had used when he’d first come to them all those decapheebs ago.  They hadn’t ever learned their cub’s full language, though, not when he was too young to teach it to them. 

 

Besides, the sounds didn’t match quite perfectly.  It had to be a different tongue. 

 

“He’s well,” Thace stated, directing his attention to the scanner in his hand and ignoring Keith’s attempts to get their attention.  The language was mindless babble.  Thace couldn’t begin to make sense of him; it was better to tune it out.  “Injuries healing at an acceptable rate.  Lesion on the left side is at fifty percent.  Head trauma minimal.  He’s exhausted from earlier though.” 

 

“Why does he look like that?” Antok asked.  Thace frowned and looked back at his face.  Keith’s cheeks were pinker than usual, and his chest was heaving with laboured breaths.  There was a touch of sweat on his forehead, and his eyes were blown just a bit too wide. 

 

Thace hummed thoughtfully.  “He was asleep…. Nightmare?” he offered.  “Does Akira still have nightmares?” 

 

“Not that he’s said.  I figured humans grew out of such hallucinations.” 

 

Thace waved the scanner over Keith one more time, just to check.  It chimed back a set of vitals that matched what they had on file for Akira, along with status reports on the wounds their visitor had acquired. 

 

“Healthy,” he said.  Keith blew out an agitated breath and made a noise like a growl. 

 

“...Thace…!” Thace recognized his name mixed with a string of nonsense.  He shared a puzzled look with Antok. 

 

“He’s trying to get our attention,” he said.  “He recognizes us, but I have no idea  _ how _ .  He’s not Akira.  He said so himself.” 

 

Antok shook his head sadly and ran the back of his hand over Keith’s hair.  The human froze under his touch.  “Put him back to sleep,” Antok decided.  “Give him some peace.”   Thace nodded.  He double checked the refastened healing band on his arm and the more durable magnetic shackles around his wrists, then put two fingers on the side of his neck and pressed. 

 

Keith’s eyes fluttered shut as he fell back into unconsciousness.  Thace sighed dejectedly and followed Antok out the door.

  
  


…

  
  


A display on the wall showed a series of dots.  At first he hadn’t even noticed them changing, and then it simply seemed like nonsense.  But by now Keith had spent enough time staring at it to figure out it’s true function: a clock. 

 

It changed formation every time Keith got bored enough to drop his attention, so he guessed that it was changing about once every fifteen minutes.  Nobody came for him- nobody interrupted- so Keith was able to test this.  He counted to sixty fifteen times (or, actually more than fifteen.  He kept getting distracted and losing track of what round he was on, which left him waiting for the dots to change again and starting over. 

 

Eventually, though, he was able to get it by counting on all his fingers, and then using his tongue to count on his teeth as well.  He only had to get to twelve before the dots changed. 

 

So the clock measured time in twelve minute intervals, or whatever the Galran or Altean or Universal Space Measurement was.  That didn’t tell him how long he’d been there, and he didn’t have the patience to watch every dot formation and try to memorize them as they passed. 

 

At least now he knew when he’d gotten through twelve more minutes.  He figured he could handle anything for twelve minutes at a time. 

 

It wasn’t important anyways.  He had a slew of different problems to spend his time thinking about.  He was trapped in a tiny medical room, tied to a bed with cuffs he couldn’t chew through and a strange sleeve pumping  _ something _ into his arm.  He had broken ribs that were healing too fast and a concussion that was almost gone and bizarro hospital staff that was keeping him alive with motives he wasn’t sure of. 

 

He was on a planet that may or may not have been the Blade of Marmora headquarters, surrounded by people who were  _ supposed _ to be practically family but weren’t, being watched by a man who was  _ supposed _ to be dead.  His team was gone, his armor and weapons were nowhere in sight, and the Black Lion was floating around  _ God knows where _ . 

 

And he couldn’t understand a lick of what anyone was saying, even when he knew they were demanding answers Keith didn’t know to questions he was asking himself.  

 

On the bright side, Keith knew where his helmet was.  

 

He had no idea how to get there, because he’d been pretty distracting while trying to escape.  He’d seen it through an open doorway on his way back, sitting in an otherwise deserted room on the corner of an empty desk.  He might be able to recognize the doorway again, maybe, but it was shortly after that when Keith’s head started to spin again.  He’d stumbled, and Antok had responded by scooping Keith up and throwing him over his shoulder.  The sudden pressure on his injured ribs was so painful that Keith blacked out and only woke up again when they were attaching him to his bed.

 

So his good news was less good and more… mediocre.  One mission as the Black Paladin and this was the situation he’d gotten himself in. 

 

He knew he wasn’t cut out for it.  He’d failed.  He’d abandoned his team, damn near killed himself, and gotten thrown in jail.  Shiro was wrong.  He wasn’t good enough.  He couldn’t be the leader the team needed. 

 

The more Keith thought, the worse his eyes burnt.  He was worried the headache from earlier was coming back- the aching skull and red tinged vision- but then he blinked and hot tears spilled over.  

 

Oh.  Fuck.  That was worse. 

 

He sucked it back, taking deep, heaving breaths and tipping his head up to look at the ceiling.  He counted the tiles, breathed in deep on every fifth square, and forced himself to calm down. 

 

It was fine.  He was fine.  He would find a way out of this. 

 

If Shiro could make it through a year,  _ alone _ , imprisoned by the Galra empire and fighting in the gladiator rings, then Keith could handle this.  He wouldn’t disappoint Shiro entirely.  Shiro thought he was strong.  Keith just had to prove him right. 

 

He just had to get out of here. 

 

Keith focused back in on the clock and started planning.  He tugged at his wrist cuffs, weighing his possibility of getting out of them against the possibility of breaking his hands, and considered his options.  

 

The room was silent.  His worries were deafening.

  
  


…

  
  


It was thirteen twelve-minute-cycles later when Thace came into the room.  Keith wasn’t good enough at math to figure that out in his head.  All he knew was that his stomach was growling and the plate in Thace’s hands smelled delicious. 

 

Thace entered with a single word, which Keith deduced to mean ‘hello.’  He said it back the best he could.  He couldn’t quite get the throaty sounds right.  It brought a slight grin to Thace’s face, though.  Something small and heavy with sadness.  Keith watched him move around the room with the vigilance of a hawk. 

 

There was a tense moment when Thace set the plate of food by Keith’s side and held eye contact with him for a long moment, hand hovering over the cuffs holding Keith in place.  It was a threat, Keith realized, or a warning.  He was going to take them off, his eyes said, and he trusted Keith not to pull any shit. 

 

Keith nodded once in understanding, glancing away as Thace pressed something on the cuff that sprung it open.  He unbound both of Keith’s wrists and settled the plate of food on his lap. 

 

The second his hands were free, Keith started thinking up a plan. 

 

First he had to gain a bit more trust, which took more patience than he thought he was capable of.  _ ‘Patience yields focus _ ,’ Shiro’s voice reminded him in his head.  Keith swallowed his pride and behaved. 

 

He couldn’t measure time when he was asleep, but he could measure it vaguely in other ways.  There were the twelve minute increments, of course, but that information was useless in the long-run.  A bit of mental math told him that five cycles equaled one hour, but he only used that when he was desperate.

 

Now that Keith was spending more time conscious than not, food came in on a regular schedule.  Two meals per waking hours, two visits apart.  Thace would come in during the morning to check Keith’s health and unchain him long enough to let him use the bathroom.  Some time later (possibly ten twelve-minute cycles, but Keith wasn’t certain), he’d return with breakfast. 

 

He’d come back two more times to check Keith over and left him use the restroom, which Keith had learned to communicate for by throwing purposeful glances at the toilet like structure in the corner.  Then there was another meal, and shortly after Keith would fall back asleep. 

 

If his configurations were right, he’d been there three days since he’d tried to make a break for it.  He had no way of knowing how much time had passed before then.

 

Regardless of the length of time, it was long enough for Thace to start warming up to him.  By the second meal of day three it was almost habit the way they acted around each other.  Keith mumbling the Galran greeting when Thace entered, looking away obediently when Thace unlocked the cuffs on his wrists.  He could use Thace’s name to catch his attention if he wanted to.  He said his name a handful of times since being there.  Thace hadn’t used his once, but one time he accidentally called him ‘Akira.’ 

 

The look on his face afterwards was heart wrenching. 

 

It almost made Keith feel bad for his scheme on the fourth day, but not bad enough to abandon it.  Thace came in with a tray full of food and the usual greeting.  Keith answered him and did his best to act casual, not wanting Thace to think anything was wrong.

 

He wasn’t expecting his plan to actually work. 

 

He’d caught a glimpse of the release mechanism on the wrist cuffs, which seemed to be activated by Galra DNA the same as the doors in most of the Galran ships the Voltron team explored.  Thace was holding the tray of food in one hand while he set Keith free, and it was that air of casualty that Keith took advantage of.   The second the mechanism popped, Keith leapt out of bed and knocked it over sideways with him, creating a temporary wall between Thace and himself.  He then dug his thumb into the release mechanism, and he planted his feet in the middle of the bed and shoved, crushing Thace between it and the wall. 

 

Just like that, he was free.  He all but flew to his feet and ran out the door.

 

He had no idea where he was going.  He didn’t want to take time to think; he knew that time could be the difference between him being free and him being killed.  So instead he ran, he ran as fast as his exhausted legs could carry him and then a little bit faster.  He darted past guards and their surprised shouting and threw himself around corners without even touching the ground. 

 

It was dumb luck that he found what he was looking for- his helmet, right there in the office from earlier, sitting untouched on the massive metal desk.  He stumbled into the room and dove for it, finally able to breathe with his hands clutching the familiar smooth surface. 

 

A noise to his left caught his attention and made him realize he wasn’t alone.   _ Kolivan _ had risen from the desk and drawn his blade, and was now pointing it directly at Keith.  Thace and Antok and several others appeared in the doorway, and it was Thace who shoved his way through and took a step forward, looking more than ready to throttle Keith for his actions.  The front of his shirt was covered in soup. 

 

Everyone was yelling.  Thace took another step.  Keith stumbled back and slammed the helmet onto his head, praying that the connection between its power supply and his quintessence wouldn’t be broken by whatever strange place he’d found himself in. 

 

He almost sobbed with relief when it buzzed to life.  Thace grabbed at him, and Keith stumbled back just out of reach, throwing his hands up and shouting, “Wait!” 

 

Everyone froze. Thace’s hands fell to his sides.  Kolivan kept his blade up and at the ready but narrowed his eyes in suspicion. 

 

It took a lot of courage to catch his breath and speak again.  “My name is Keith, and I am a paladin of Voltron.  I’m not a threat.  I don’t know how I got here.” 

 

There was another long, pregnant pause.  It was long enough that Keith started to worry the translator in his helmet wasn’t working properly, but then Kolivan stepped forward and lowered his blade.  Thace stepped respectfully off to the side, and Kolivan broke the silence. 

 

“Do you have any idea where you are?” he asked, and it was such a relief to hear Kolivan’s  _ voice _ that he almost didn’t care about anything else. 

 

But he had questions to answer.  “The Blade of Marmora Headquarters,” he said, hoping on every star that he was right.  Based by the look of surprise that took over Thace’s expression, he was.  An uncomfortable murmur danced through the crowd piling into the doorway, and for the first time in days, Keith could understand what they were saying. 

 

_ “How could he-” _

 

_ “There’s no way….” _

 

_ “-think someone sent him?”  _

 

_ “A Druid trick.  It has to be.”  _

 

“Silence.”  The command in Kolivan’s voice hushed the entire room.  He stepped closer, and Keith drew himself up taller, ignoring the still present burn in his side.  Kolivan looked Keith over with great scrutiny.  “How could you know that?” 

 

Keith didn’t have a real answer to that question.  He shifted on his feet and suppressed the urge to shrug.  “I’ve been here before.”

 

There was another uproar of murmuring at that, this one louder than the first.  One particular comment near him caught his attention.  They asked, “Do you think it’s a trick from the Druids?” 

 

They’d mentioned the druids  _ twice _ .  Keith had to wonder if it was the same ones.  He looked over at the Galra who’d said it and asked, “Hagar?” 

 

The silence that fell over them, and the ice in the look Kolivan bore into him made the room feel like it dropped ten degrees.  Kolivan’s voice was a growl as he spoke. 

 

“How do you know that name?” 

 

Keith couldn’t help but gulp at the tone. “I…I mean- Voltron has fought her,” he explained, carefully studying Kolivan’s deadly expression.  “She’s the one in charge of the Druids, right?  Zarkon’s right hand?” 

 

“There is no way for you to know that!” Kolivan snapped, taking a step closer.  Keith took another step back.  “Hagar was defeated long ago.  She’s  _ dead _ .” 

 

“She was there at the battle of Zarkon!” Keith argued.  “Allura fought her one-on-one.  She’s the one keeping Zarkon alive with quintessence!” 

 

“Zarkon is  _ dead _ ,” Kolivan practically shouted.  Keith’s breath caught in his throat.  “But that is none of your concern.  You are too young to know about these things, Akira.” 

 

Keith swallowed the bile rising in his throat at that comment.  It felt like acid.  Behind him, Thace shifted anxiously.  “I’m  _ not _ Akira.  I have no idea who that is.  I’m  _ Keith _ and I’m a paladin of Voltron.  I’ve fought Zarkon myself.  I’m not too young to know  _ anything _ .” 

 

The murmurs were back.   _ “Fought Zarkon?”  _

 

_ “Voltron?  What is that?”  _

 

_ “Zarkon’s been dead for thousands of years….”  _

 

_ “Do you think the Empire messed with him?”  _

 

“If Zarkon is dead then who is leading the empire?” Keith asked, throwing a glance towards the crowd of Galra, knowing Kolivan wouldn’t give him any answers.  

 

In the end, it was Kolivan who answered him first.  “You would know.  You speak like a spy.  Voltron is a weapon they have been gathering since before the death of Zarkon.  You say you are a part of that, then you must be with them.” 

 

Keith’s blood ran cold with panic.  “I’m not!” he argued, stepping closer.  Kolivan lifted his blade immediately, keeping space between them, settling the tip at the base of Keith’s throat.  His eyes drilled through Keith to his core, cold and unforgiving and  _ not _ the eyes he recognized. 

 

He said, “If you are not Akira, then you are not of Marmora.”  Then he looked up at Thace and directed his speach to him.  “He is well enough to run, so he must be well enough to leave the sick bay.  Put him in a cell, and take the helmet.  I do not wish to hear anymore of his lies.” 

 

Without a second glance in Keith’s direction, he lowered his blade and walked away.  A path was cleared through the doorway to allow him through.  Keith couldn’t believe it. 

 

“Wait!” he yelled after him.  “I’m not lying!  My name is Keith, and I fight for the revolution!  I've fought at your side! We’re on the same team!” 

 

Kolivan disappeared from sight, and Thace took a step forward.  Keith stumbled away from him, back knocking into the wall.  He brought his hands up in fists in front of his face to guard himself.  “You have to believe me!” he pleaded.  “You saved my life in the battle of Zarkon!  Don’t any of you  _ remember me _ !?” 

 

Thace reached for his helmet, and no amount of fighting from Keith could prevent him from taking it away.  He kicked and screamed and fought against Thace’s grip on him like a bat out of hell, but despite his best efforts, the helmet was torn from his head and tossed to the side.  Keith was left deaf again, surrounded by a sea of voices talking about him. 

 

“No!” Keith screamed, trying to claw his way out of Thace’s grip as he carried him from the room.  “You can’t do this!  You have to believe me!” 

 

But after two prison breaks, Thace was feeling anything but merciful.  He left Keith’s helmet on the floor and hauled him down two flights of stairs, where he dumped him unceremoniously in a damp and empty cell and slammed the door behind him.  

 

The cell was pitch black and cold, and the thin gown he’d been wearing since his arrival several days ago served little protection against the elements.  He felt panicked, like a trapped animal, and he backed himself into a corner to have  _ something _ to hold onto.  He slid down the wall, pulling his knees to his chest as he went, and tried not to shiver. 

 

First Shiro had gone missing, and now Keith was joining him in the vast realm of anonymity.  The Blade didn’t recognize him.  They didn’t  _ trust _ him.  Keith’s chest felt cold and tight, his stomach rolled with nausea and heat swam behind his eyes. 

 

Under the isolating blanket of darkness, at least Keith finally had some privacy.  Overwrought with frustration and confusion and  _ fear _ , he curled up tight into himself and finally allowed the tears to fall.  Nobody could see him here.  He was entirely alone. 

 

With his escape plan failed and abandoned on the floor upstairs, there was nothing else for him to do.  No clock to count, no language to try and decipher.  He hugged himself tighter, buried his face in his knees, and didn’t bother to keep himself from crying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we still don't have any answers. I'm hoping Keith crying here isn't too ooc? He strikes me as a frustrated crier (I mean, just rewatch their first training montage. c'mon man). 
> 
> More to come, anyways. This is either going to be 4 or 5 chapters. Ig we'll see. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, and a huge thanks to everyone who commented on part one!!! Seriously. Givin' me life, guys.


	3. In the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Antok had heard it time and time again, the earth language that didn’t match Keith’s but sounded the same."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yoo few days gap since last update. Sorry friends. College is... well, y'know. Anyways, there's gonna be talk about a song in this chapter. If you'd like to listen to it when you get to that point, it's Island Baby https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Joznb5lm8D8
> 
> I took the lyrics from the youtube description, because my Korean is limited to the numbers 1-10 and a set of basic commands. So.

“What do you mean he’s _gone_?” Kolivan growled, gritting his teeth together and slamming his fist into the wall hard enough to make Hunk jump.  “How did you lose him?  Humans don’t just disappear!”

 

“I mean, apparently they do,” Pidge said, earning her scathing glances from every one of her teammates and a vicious glare from Kolivan.  “What?” she protested.  “First Shiro, now _Keith_?  They both disappeared into thin air, and both of them were piloting the Black Lion when it happened.”

 

“Yeah, but Shiro didn’t take the Black Lion with him,” Lance argued.  “This can’t be the same situation.  We actually saw Keith disappear.  Shiro just vanished.”

 

Pidge wandered a short distance away and threw herself down into the nearest empty paladin’s chair.  Lance slouched sulkily against Hunk’s side.  Allura hunched over the control panel, elbows braced on the table and head dropped into her hands.

 

“Keith went through a portal,” she said.  “It wasn’t a portal that took away Shiro.  We have a better chance of figuring this out so long as we can identify the type of travel that was used.”

 

“White blinding light swirling in the middle of open space?” Hunk said, voice on the edge of frantic, gears churning audibly in his head.  “That could be anything.  For all we knew, Keith flew right into the face of a star!”

 

“A star that materialized out of thin air and disappeared in the span of two seconds?” Pidge drawled, voice flat with exhaustion.  “Sounds reasonable.”

 

“Pull up the surveillance cams again.  Maybe if we rewatch the footage we’ll get a better idea of what’s going on.” Lance didn’t remove himself from Hunk’s side as he spoke.  Whether he was leaning against Hunk to gain or give support was up in the air.  Hunk didn’t seem any worse for wear, either way.

 

“I’ll pull up the files, then,” Pidge said, already typing away at the display screen she’d pulled up from Lance’s station.  “But I don’t see what good watching it again is going to do.”

 

Kolivan’s voice sounded like gravel as he spoke. “We don’t have time for this.  We should be out there looking right now!”

 

“And make the castle a target again?” Allura snapped back.  “That is _not_ an option.”

 

“We don’t have any other options!” Kolivan roared.  His face was tense, shoulders heaving with barely contained rage.  He and Antok had been away on a mission when it had happened.  They’d only just now learned of Keith’s disappearance, and it was harder than anyone had prepared themselves for.

 

Antok stepped forward out of the shadows, not making a sound against the floor.  His large hand settled on Kolivan’s shoulder and squeezed ever so slightly, and the tension drained from those shoulders like air leaking from a balloon.  Kolivan closed his eyes and took a deep breath.  Lance watched this all happen with tears welling in his eyes.

 

If he pressed closer to Hunk, nobody noticed.

 

“We are doing all we can,” Allura said, voice on the dangerous side of stern.  She snapped easily when she was upset; all of them were learning to.  Anger was just an easier emotion to handle.  Maybe it wasn’t healthy, but it was all they had.

 

It couldn’t have been easy for Allura, to lose not one but _two_ of her paladins.  They were all kind of just playing this by ear, giving 100% and hoping for the best.  They were going down swinging, most of the time.  It was hard doing that as a _paladin_ , but feeling so unprepared and lost must have been devastating as a leader.

 

Allura rolled her shoulders back and stood up straighter.

 

“Play the footage,” she commanded.  Pidge looked away and jabbed her knuckle at the correct key.

 

They’d already watched it a dozen times, but Lance had hope that the thirteenth time was the charm.  

 

He was wrong, and the fourteenth try held no further enlightenment.  But on their fifteenth run through something finally clicked.

 

“Wait,” Coran said, shooting up from his seat and crossing the room in a blur of vision.  His hand grabbed the screen Pidge was working with (which was just a hologram suspended in thin air?  Lance didn’t understand space tech…) and dragged it over with him, leaving it to idle while he typed a string of code into a different screen.

 

“I’ve seen this before,” he explained as he worked.  “I wasn’t sure before, but….”

 

Coran stepped aside to show what he’d been searching.  Two screens floated side by side, one showing an endless loop of Black flying into a disc of light.  The other showed a hole in the ground- a gaping, glowing white hole that pulsed with the same energy signals as the other.

 

Pidge picked her head up and adjusted her glasses.  Hunk stood up a little bit straighter.  Kolivan pulled himself away from Antok’s grip and stared slack jawed at the screen.

 

“It cannot be…” he murmured, voice like a funeral.  “We’ve lost him.”

  
  


...

 

It's harder to tell time in the cell- no clock to focus on, no apparent set schedule.  Maybe the dark was deceiving him and making time feel longer. Maybe he'd gotten used to the regularity of Thace walking through the door.

 

He still saw Thace.  He saw his boots when he slid meals through a slot at the bottom of his door- strips of meat that were tough as leather and impossible to chew.  They tasted like soy sauce and raspberry jam, and they made the back of his tongue feel numb.  It was still better than the tasteless mush that reminded Keith of the grits his father used to make during camping trips in the desert.

 

"Be grateful for what you have, and clean your plate.  Leave any behind and the 'yotes'll come."

 

The Galra weren't exactly coyotes, but his dad's warning rang loud in his head and spurred him on.  He'd read a book about prisoner's of war back in high school- he should eat while he could now, because he never knew when they'd decide to stop feeding him.

 

Without a way to tell time- food was irregular, visits stopped, sleep overtook him at random and stole back any semblance of control he had- Keith had no way of knowing how long he'd been in there.  Two meals, so... one day? It felt like longer.

 

It probably wasn't.  He was being a wimp.  He could get through this.

 

It had been one day, maybe.  Keith couldn't be sure.  Once Coran had locked him and Lance in the training room once for twenty-four hours to, and he quotes, "Get ahold of yourselves and learn to relate to each other!  You're defenders of the universe!  Not sniveling welderboms!"  That hadn't even felt as long as Keith's current captivity, but then again, he'd at least had someone else there to keep him company.

 

Even if it was Lance.

 

Keith paced his cell and tried to entertain himself.  He walked every square inch, arms outstretched for extra protection, because while his eyes had adjusted minutely to the darkness, the coal black walls of his cell weren't exactly clear.  

 

His pacing helped him discover two things- a ledge sticking out of the left wall that seemed about the same height as a bed.  No pillow or blanket, just heat radiating stone. At least it was something.  The other thing was a drain in the back right corner.  He had a pretty good idea of what that was for.  At least he'd been given a bathroom, then.

 

He explored his cell, then he tested his limits.  The used careful presses of his fingertips to feel over his entire skull.  There was a goose egg on the back of his head, and his eyes still tingled in a way that suggested he’d burnt them, somehow, but besides those minor injuries he was fine.  Rolling his neck felt fine, quick movements didn’t make him sick, and the headache that had plagued him before in the medical wing was all but gone.

 

His ribs were another story.  They weren’t _awful_.  Keith wasn’t about to consider complaining, but they still hurt in a way that suggested lasting damage.  The darkness wouldn’t allow him to check for a bruise like he wanted to, but he could find the exact point of pressure that resulted in excruciating pain.

 

So bruised, or broken, maybe.  The third and fourth ribs from the bottom were fucked up.  At least he could breathe.  

 

He could move around fine so long as he didn’t twist too fast.  That was a shame.  After sleeping for so long, he was filling to the brim with restless energy.  He wanted to hit something, to run, to stretch his legs out- he needed _something_.

 

He stopped short of punching the door.  He didn’t need the broken hand, though the potential attention from the noise that would cause wouldn’t be exactly unwelcomed.

 

Unless they were mad.  The left side of Keith’s face was still tender to the touch, and he could feel a twinge of pain if he blinked his eye a certain way.

 

He sat there for a while and tested that, and that was when he decided he was losing his mind.  There he was, sitting alone in the dark and trying to feel pain to entertain himself.  This was a new low, and thinking about it wasn’t too good for his mental health.

 

Mental health.  In an intergalactic war.  Ha.  Good one.

 

Shiro would have a lecture about that, about how mental health was just as important as physical health.  How they had to keep morale up and learn to compartmentalize and embrace their feelings.  How Voltron didn’t allow them to keep secrets from their teammates, and about how secrets are dangerous anyways.  He’d want Keith to treat him like a therapist.

 

Shiro was a God damned hypocrite.

 

Keith clenched his hands into fists and struck his thigh once, relishing in the thuddy _ow_ that felt almost subdued compared to everything else.  His anger was burning in his chest, his head was screaming, and Keith was starting to feel like he couldn’t breathe.

 

That’s when he started to talk.

 

He paced his cell and talked to the walls, bitching about everything he could think of.  It was _cold_ and it was _dark_ and the food tasted horrible and made his stomach cramp.  His clothes were barely more than an oversized t-shirt, and after days and days without a shower he was starting to smell like Hunk after paladin training.  

 

Nobody spoke his language, and they’d taken away his damn translator.   _Why had they taken away his translator?_  Why were they so unwilling to listen to him?  Who the hell _were they_ ?  They weren’t the Blade of Marmora, that was for sure.  At least the originals had been reasonable.  Untrusting at first, sure, but that was all justifiable.  Keith had been a stranger.  Keith had been _armed_.  Keith hadn’t had any answers to their questions, and….

 

Wasn’t that exactly what was happening now?

 

Keith was a stranger….  He’d showed up on their planet with no idea how he’d gotten there and no proper introduction.

 

Keith was armed…. He’d crashed the Black Lion into their home.  He’d stumbled out of their cockpit wearing full battle armor and clutching a knife.  One of _their_ knives, apparently, if this fake Blade of Marmora held as much meaning in their Blades.

 

Keith didn’t have any answers…. The language barrier wasn’t his friend, but even without it, he hadn’t known the right things to say to Kolivan.  He’d tried.  He’d said everything he could think of, but Kolivan called him a liar.  Kolivan called him Akira, _then_ he’d called him a liar, and Keith didn’t know _what he’d done_ to make the Blade Leader hate him so much, but it was obvious Kolivan’s reactions to him weren’t entirely logical.

 

Didn’t they _want_ answers?  

 

They should have slapped a translator on him and questioned him.  They should have tied him up somewhere and interrogated him, fired question after question and beaten him until he complied.  Shit, they should have put him through the Trials again.  If there was any way to gain knowledge, it was _that_.

 

But whatever weird circumstances he was in… whoever he _reminded_ them of (would the real Akira please stand up?)... was ruining everything.  Keeping him alive, probably, but ruining his chance for usefulness.

 

Even if he didn’t want to be used.

 

But that’s what anyone else would do.  They’d talked about it.  Keith talked about it now.  Coran and Shiro had explained what could happen if they got captured, what they had to be ready to try and handle.  Shiro had first hand experience that he barely talked about, but the little he _did_ let out about the Galra had made all of them tense and uncomfortable and nearly drove Lance to tears.

 

It nearly drove Keith to tears, but he didn’t cry in front of other people.

 

He’d learned not to.

 

He wasn’t crying now, either.  He was screaming.

 

“Come _on!”_ he exclaimed at one point, frustration bursting out of him like a volcano as he pounded his fists against the door and revelled in the pain that stabbed him in the side from exertion.  “Why are you keeping me here!?  What do you _want from me!?_ ”  

 

He screamed at the unanswering door and got no response.  Of course not.  Even if they could hear him, it wasn’t like they knew what he was saying.

 

“Just torture me already!” he demanded.  He’d obviously developed a death wish.  “Let me fight!  Let me do _something_ \- I… Ican’t _take it anymore!”_

 

He screamed until his throat split and his head spun and he was left gulping in air through anguished sobs.  He screamed until the pent up energy, ever so slowly, leaked out of him like a cracked pipe and left him sagging against the door, cradling his now busted knuckles to his chest and fighting to keep his eyes open.

 

He dragged himself the short distance across the cell and curled up on the “bed,” tucking himself into a corner and curling up tight on his side.

 

He forced his breaths to come in slow, eight seconds in, eight seconds out.  Someone had told him that was supposed to help.

 

Someone was full of shit.

 

He couldn’t stay quiet, though.  Without his own voice filling his ears, the silence was unbearably heavy.  His head was _pounding_.  The room spun around him.  He was losing his mind.

 

He’d run out of things to talk about, and instead he found the memories of a song creeping into his head.  He’d heard it a hundred times before in his childhood.  His father used to sing it, but his mother had known it too.  He didn’t remember her much at all, but he remembered her voice.

 

What the hell.  It wasn’t like he had any other options.

 

His voice was shaky and sore, and he hated how it sounded to his own ears, but it was better than the damn quiet.  

 

“...Eom ma ga seom geu neul e… gul tta reo ga myeon…” he mumbled to himself, clutching his sore hand under his chin and trying to get his breathing back.  He didn’t know what the song was called- had never been able to look it up, either, but he remembered all the words.  

 

They were comforting, even if he didn’t know what they meant.

 

He went through once, and he was just starting it again when a noise at the door startled him into silence.

 

It cracked open, just a bit, letting a sliver of light spill in.  On the other side a silhouette that was too big to be anyone but Antok stood staring in.  He held Keith’s helmet in one massive hand, arm outstretched like an offering.  Keith hesitated, not trusting the gesture for good reason, until Antok nodded.

 

Well… maybe.  He carefully unfurled and crawled off the slab of stone, then he crept on cat feet to the door.  He paused out of arm’s reach, staring Antok down speculatively, but when no harm came to him after several long moments, he reached an arm out and grabbed the helmet.  

 

He didn’t put it on, just clutched it to his chest and pressed the button on the side to activate it, then he stared down Antok expectantly.

 

“I have heard that song,” Antok told him, voice steady but eyes conveying some sort of emotion.  Keith always forgot how good some of the Galra's hearing was.  Keith's voice had barely been above a whisper.  “Kolivan must hear.  Come with me and sing again.”

 

He was holding handcuffs, but he was also holding open the door.  The loss of control was worth the chance to get out of the darkness.  Keith swallowed hard and put the helmet back on his head.

 

“Okay…” he said.  “Fine.”

  


…

  


Antok hadn’t been as involved in Akira’s upbringing as the others.  It made him so nervous, before, when Kudied showed up after being MIA for _dobashes_ with that tiny thing cradled in her arms.  She’d passed him down, telling Kolivan “I know it’s a lot to ask, but you’re the only family he has,” before walking right back out the door.  The tiny cub had tried chasing after her, but he was too unsteady on his legs.  He fell down, and he started to cry, and Thace had been the first one there picking him up and holding him to his chest.

 

“It is okay,” he’d cooed, rocking the weird, pink, squishy little alien and sending a pleading glance towards Kolivan.  “It is alright, shhhh, be at peace….”

 

Akira hadn’t had a name that they’d known of, so Kolivan chose the name of Kudied’s brother, a renowned revolutionary fallen at the hands of the empire.

 

And now their grown cub was lost in space, potentially following in his name sake’s path, while Antok walked side by side with this _intruder_.

 

But he knew the song.  He knew the song that Akira had sung when he was younger.  His voice had been tiny, and his pronunciation had been pretty worse for wear, but it was still intelligible.  Thace and Ulaz had learned that song, as his primary caregivers.  Hell, even Kolivan had learned it, at some point.  It was the only thing that could get the restless cub to quiet down and go to sleep some nights.  It was necessary to learn it.

 

Antok had heard it time and time again, the earth language that didn’t match Keith’s but sounded the same.

 

And now Keith had been singing the song, and Antok didn’t know what that meant.

 

Kolivan would, though.  Kolivan was the one who made all the hard decisions.  

 

Antok lead Keith through the halls of the Blade of Marmora headquarters, blatantly ignoring every strange glance the pair received from other Blades.  Antok was second in command.  They wouldn’t dare question his actions.  They would follow him down the hallway, though, not being nearly as sneaky as they thought they were.

 

Antok stopped them right outside the main hall and set a hand on the side of Keith’s helmet.

 

His hand _dwarfed_ him.  Akira was tiny too, a little bit taller, but very close to the same size.  He was doomed to be a runt forever, they figured.  He’d never grow to his full potential.  That was just another thing their cub and this stranger had in common.

 

They even had the same eyes.

 

Keith glared at him suspiciously, and Antok spoke.  “I need to take this,” he said.  “I cannot promise to give it back.”  Thank the stars, the kid didn’t argue.  He simply tilted his head forward, allowing Antok to pull the helmet off before marching the both of them inside.

 

Kolivan was on his feet near the front of the room, conversing with Thace and several others.  They went silent as the two of them walked in, everyone freezing and Kolivan’s spine going straight and tense.  He was the one person in the Blade of Marmora who could question what Antok was doing.  Keith had better not make a fool out of him.

 

“What is the meaning of this?” Kolivan asked as the crowd around him stepped out of the way.  He’d drawn himself up, ready for a fight.  Antok kept his own posture as relaxed and peaceful as he could.

 

“Leader,” he started.  “This one knows the song.  The one Akira used to sing as a cub.  You need to hear it.”

 

Kolivan stayed silent and narrowed his eyes.  Antok knew reluctant permission when he saw it.  He jostled Keith a bit and gave him a pointed nod, and the little alien looked around the room with wide eyes before running his tongue over his lips and nodding.

 

His voice shook, and his face changed an unnatural red color the way Akira’s did when he was exhausted or upset.  But he sang, and it was only ticks into it that Thace’s eyes widened in recognition.

 

 _“A gi ga hon ja nam a,”_ Keith sang, and Thace stepped to Kolivan’s side with excited posture and light behind his eyes.

 

  
He sang back, “Jip eul bo da ga….” and Keith stopped singing.  He made a quiet gasping noise, and when Antok looked him over, he found his mouth hanging open and his eyes opened wide.

 

He opened his mouth and spoke, and of course, it was nonsense.  They knew a very limited amount of Akira’s native language- that song, and a few basic words.  Food.  Drink.  Mother.  Keith wasn’t speaking the same language, and it sounded like garbage.  That couldn’t kill the way Thace’s face was glowing.

 

“How does he know the song?” he demanded over Keith.  Keith threw a glance from Thace to Antok, a question coming across his expression.  

 

“I did not teach it to him,” Antok clarified.  “I just heard him singing.”

 

“Is it something very common on Earth?”

 

“Perhaps it is.”

 

Kolivan raised a hand, and everyone fell silent.  He didn’t tear his eyes away from Keith as he said, “Give the boy the helmet.”  Antok was quick to obey.

 

Keith changed from gaping at Thace to gaping at Antok, but he didn’t waste much time.  He grabbed his helmet and fumbled it with bound hands, but he was able to wrestle it onto his head and press his small, pale fingers into the activation button on the side.

 

Kolivan continued to stare him down.  “How do you know that song?” he asked.

 

There was uncertainty in Keith’s voice as he answered.  “I’ve known it since I was a child.”

 

“Your parents taught it to you?”

 

Keith shook his head back and forth and answered, “I don’t have any.”

 

A murmur sprung up around the room, people muttering to each other in conversation.  Someone wondered aloud about human asexual reproduction, and Keith must have heard it too, because he looked towards the person who’d spoke as he added, “I had parents.  They left me.”

 

“They were both human?” Kolivan asked.  The look that passed over Keith’s face was hard to read.

 

“My father was…” he eventually answered.  “My mother… I don’t remember her, but I think she was something else.”

 

Kolivan crossed the room slowly and took a seat in his chair at the center of the hall, and everyone else stepped into a hasty version of proper formation.  Antok didn’t leave Keith’s side, just in case the cub decided to try another getaway scheme.  He stayed steadily but silent as Kolivan asked Keith questions, and slowly they got answers.

 

Answers that didn’t make anymore sense.

 

“My name is Keith, I’m from planet Earth.  

 

“I am a paladin of Voltron, and I fight against the Galra empire.

 

“I have no idea how I got here, but I don’t mean you any harm.

 

“You look a lot like people I know back home.  You have the same names and everything.  They’re also members of the Blade of Marmora, but they….”

 

It was during that last segment that Keith trailed off, eyes growing wide and mouth falling open.  Kolivan leaned in suspiciously, hands folded and eyes studying.  Keith threw a knowing glance back at him and spoke with passion.

 

“I went through a portal to get here,” he said, acting as if he’d just remembered.  “I think I’m in an alternate reality.”

  
  


…

  


Kolivan didn’t trust Keith as far as he could throw him, which might have been a bad analogy, since Kolivan could actually throw him pretty far.  They’d practiced that a few times in training, and it was a new strategy that they had at their disposal, to brace themselves for impact and let the Blade of Marmora toss them like footballs across the room.

 

They’d used it in battle once, and it had been surprisingly effective.  The look on the Galra’s face when Pidge landed on him was _priceless._

 

But that was the old Blade, and this was the new, and the new Blade didn’t trust Keith at all.  

 

“Alternate realities are a myth,” Kolivan had told him.  “There is no empirical evidence to back your claim.”

 

Keith had shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest as an extra layer of defense.  The all-seeing gaze of the Blade Leader was making him nervous.  He said, “That’s the only answer I can think of,” and there hadn’t been much argument about that.

 

They’d questioned him extensively, firing off question after question about Keith’s reality and his own piece of the resistance.  Apparently in this universe Zarkon had already been defeated, and Hagar not long after him.  Others had risen to and fallen from power, though.  The Galra Empire was like an incurable virus.  Every time they cut a piece down, it grew right back.

 

A smaller threat, maybe, but it explained Kolivan’s short temper.  Keith would be frustrated by that too.

 

They thought he was a spy, that much was obvious.  He was a spy or a trap, and there was no way to convince them otherwise.  

 

The best argument he had was when he said he’d gone through the Trials of Marmora.

 

“I had my Blade with me when I landed,” he said, praying for a chance.  “It was my mothers.  Get it for me, and I’ll show you!”

 

A Galra off to the left had chortled at that, muttering, “How stupid does he think we are?  Giving this stranger a weapon.”

 

“Fetch the Blade,” Kolivan had demanded immediately.  Antok didn’t move from his side as someone darted out of the room, and it was only seconds later that they returned with the knife in hand.  They hadn’t it to Antok, who held it out to Keith.  Keith wrapped his hand around the handle, closed his eyes, and breathed deep, and just as he’d hoped, his Blade glowed to life and transformed from a dagger into a sword.

 

The gasp that went through the room sounded like a roar.  Kolivan’s stare intensified, and Keith decided not to test his luck.  He stooped to the ground and set the Blade at his feet, out of reach, like he’d seen on police shows.  

 

“It was my mother’s,” he explained.  “I’ve had it all my life.  I went through the Trials of Marmora and activated my Blade.  Knowledge or death.”

 

“Knowledge or death….” a few people murmured along.  Keith met Kolivan’s unwavering stare and waited.

 

They’d taken his Blade away, but now he had his helmet.  They’d given him a change of clothes as well, the suit identical to the one he’d worn during the Trials all those months ago.  It brought back awful memories, but Keith wasn’t going to turn down clean clothes.  At least he didn’t have to fight this time.

 

Not yet.

 

Thace was once again his keeper.  Keith followed him everywhere he went, stayed within arm’s reach, and did his best not to move fast enough to startle anybody.  Everywhere they went, curious and angry glances followed them. Thace barely spoke to him.  He couldn’t seem to bear to.  Keith didn’t learn anything else about Akira.  He was too afraid to ask.

 

That was until the next morning.  Keith had slept in what looked to be a dormitory, on a bunk surrounded by younger Galra that Keith figured _had_ to be the recruits Kolivan (his Kolivan) was always talking about.  Thace handcuffed him to the bed and put two sets of cuffs around his ankles, so he wouldn’t be tempted to try and escape.  It would have been more comfortable to sleep without his helmet on, but he was worried they would try and take it away again.  He liked to be able to understand everyone.  He slept with it on.

 

That morning he woke up to an explosion that had everyone on their feet and running.  Allura would have appreciated the amount of hustle they all exhibited so early in the morning.

 

Keith had tugged at his restraints, anxiety swelling in his chest.  It could be an _attack_ or his _team_ or the Galra empire invading.  Whatever it was, Keith didn’t want it to happen while he was _chained to a bed_.

 

Luckily enough, one of the recruits had mercy on him.  She stopped and popped the locks off of all his bonds before straightening up and sprinting out the door.  Keith was quick to follow.  He followed the crowd as everyone rushed towards the main hall.  Once there, Keith elbowed his way to the front of the crowd to see, and he got there just in time to see someone drops to their knees and rest their Blade against the floor, leaning down to rest their forehead against it.

 

“Leader,” the voice said, and some quality of it made a shiver run up Keith’s spine.  “Father.  I’m home.”

 

The stranger straightened up, Blade still resting on the floor as he sat back on his heels.  He reached up and removed his helmet, and that’s when Keith’s heart stopped.  Keith knew the boy kneeling in the great hall before Kolivan.  He saw him in the mirror every single morning.

 

The boy calling Kolivan ‘father’ was Keith.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So a lot of you have asked compelling questions, and I promise that any of them that aren't answered directly through the fic will be dealt with after. Don't want to answer now and blow the mystery. 
> 
> Which I'm glad is working btw? I've never written a plot that kept things hidden like this, so, yay. 
> 
> also I'm loving the live-reaction comments you guys are leaving me? Holy shit??? Watching you guys figure out what's going on is so much fun.


	4. Dance With The Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “ 'Knowledge or death,' Keith said, finding some melancholic comfort in the unforgiving phrase.
> 
> Antok nodded once and hummed. 'Precisely.' ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter titles continue to be bizarre and meaningless

 

Akira hadn’t meant to crash land his ship into the meteor the Blade of Marmora headquarters rested on, but then again, he hadn’t meant for any of this to go down the way it had.  It was supposed to be a simple mission- low-key espionage, where Akira would slip into an occupied planet unnoticed, get a grasp on the situation, and return within a few cycles, no more than fifty quintents at  _ most _ . 

 

It wasn’t a high pressure mission, but it had high pressure status.  This was only his second time actually getting  _ out _ .  He was young, and the elder members of the Blade had lifetimes of experience on him.  They wanted him to be ready. 

This was his chance to prove he was. 

 

Which, of course, meant it all had to go wrong.  He got to the planet just fine, it was getting  _ onto _ the planet that proved challenging.  They had an invisible barrier enmeshed in their atmosphere, something that had shocked the ship into partial functioning and alerted the Galra there to his location. 

 

It had been all he could do to keep the thing flying. 

 

Kolivan had been fraught with worry, shouting commands through the comms to “Get out of there!” and “Return to the base.  Now!” 

 

“I can do this,” Akira had argued back, because he  _ could _ .  He  _ knew _ he could.  But his guardians were so overprotective, they didn’t even want to give him a chance.  The second something went wrong, they wanted to yank him back to the base by the scruff of his neck and send him back into training.

 

He’d trained. He was ready.  If anything went wrong he could fight his way out of it. 

 

After the mess his latest mission had turned into, he doubted they’d ever declare him ready to leave the headquarters again.  

 

Especially after his blatant act of insubordination.  His first argument was already over the line, but then Kolivan demanded he “Turn around and return  _ immediately _ , that is an  _ order, _ Akira!”

 

And he’d responded with, “I’m going in.  I’m sorry,” before diving nose first into the electrifying atmosphere, well….  Any response Kolivan had to his return that  _ didn’t _ include skinning him alive, he would be eternally grateful for. 

 

He wasn’t holding his breath, though. 

 

Except now he was, quite literally.  First, he’d disobeyed direct orders.  Then he’d been missing for nearly a quarter of a decapheeb.  Now he’d returned to his home in a destructive fireball and was kneeling in the center of the great hall, waiting for judgment. 

 

Antok had been the first to arrive, sprinting into the room, Blade at the ready.  Kolivan had followed immediately after, and following them was the rest of the Blade of Marmora, masks on, Blades up, ready to throw down. 

 

Akira had thrown his mask to the side, dropped to his knees, and held his Blade above his head with open palms.  When the crowd came to a stand still in the doorway, Akira made eye contact with Kolivan and very slowly lowered his Blade to the floor, then put his hands by his head, sat back on his heels, and waited. 

 

It felt like he waited a lifetime.

 

Eventually- long enough that Akira had to let out the breath he’d been holding and start again- the crowd began to stir.  Antok stepped to the side, near the seats in the front, while others filed into their respective places along the walls.  Those with less seniority, less status, stayed in position in the doorway.  Akira didn’t pay attention to them, though. His eyes were fixed on Kolivan as he paced slowly across the room in Akira’s direction.  

 

The reckoning, then.  Akira waited, trembling like a child.  He heart pounded and his stomach turned.  

 

But then Kolivan reached him, and instead of any sort of punishment or attack Akira could imagine, he dropped into a kneel in front of Akira and immediately pulled him into his arms. 

 

His grip was strong, armor rough where Akira was pressed into it, but he was warm and sturdy and  _ forgiving _ .  Akira buried his face against Kolivan’s shoulder and gripped him back just as tight. 

 

He didn’t deserve this kind treatment.  He knew that.  So he made himself speak clearly despite wanting to choke.  “Father, I’m sorry. Forgive me.  My actions were disrespectful.”

 

Akira had made Kolivan angry numerous times.  He was hardheaded and impulsive and foolish, and he knew he deserved whatever consequences he’d earned himself.  In the Blade of Marmora every lesson was taught the hard way, and Akira and the other young Galra had spent hours bonding over punishing sparring sessions and pretty bruises and stringent chores.  He’d really done it this time.

 

But consequences didn’t seem to be coming.  Kolivan’s hands settled on his shoulders and pushed him back a bit, holding him a bit away and then resting their foreheads together.  “There is time for that later,” he said, which wasn’t comforting, exactly, but still put his nerves at ease.  “I am glad you are safe, my child.” 

 

And that had been the end of that. 

 

Thace’s welcome had been quite different.  The second Kolivan was out of the way and dismissed them all from their attentive stance, Thace darted across the room and swung Akira off his feet in a bone-crushing hug. 

 

“Don’t you ever-” he started to say, and then lost his place to instead bury his face against Akira’s hair.  Akira’s feet dangled off the ground like a ragdoll.  “You scared us to death.  Ulaz will be so glad to know you are safe.” 

 

“I’m sorry,” Akira coughed out, and then yelped when Thace spun him around and squeezed him even tighter.  His face burned with embarrassment, because when he wasn’t being swung around, Akira could clearly see his friends snickering at him over Thace’s shoulder. 

 

He’d deal with them later. 

 

“Don’t you ever scare us like that again, or you will spar until you cannot move.  Fifty quintents without contact.  Are you insane?” Thace set Akira back on his feet, but then grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him a bit as he spoke. Akira did his best to keep a smile off his face.  He did a very poor job of it. 

 

Antok’s welcome was more lowkey.  He simply materialized behind Akira and smacked him solidly upside the head.  Then he ruffled Akira’s hair and faded back into the shadows.  Akira rubbed at the back of his head and grinned.  That would likely happen a dozen times before the day was over.  He was more than prepared to receive a talking to from every single elder in the headquarters.  

 

But that could wait.  Akira needed to bathe and eat a warm meal.  He needed to tell his piece at their rendezvous and explain that his disastrous mission wasn’t entirely for naught.  He’d discovered a number of unmarked, occupied planets, and had spent a good amount of time with a rebellion force on a planet they believed was deserted. 

 

He had a great deal to celebrate, and a mountain of work to do, but when movement near the doorway caught his attention, his mind went blank. 

 

Elbowing his way to the front of the crowd, wearing a Blade of Marmora uniform and a foreign helmet, was someone small. Someone small and pale and… and human. 

 

Akira had heard the word, but he’d never seen someone else who looked like him.  Someone with features too delicate to be Galran, but too sturdy to be Unilu.  Someone without fur or slime or scales.

 

But this person didn’t just look similar to Akira- he looked damn near identical.  Akira had an ancient picture of his parents.  He  _ knew _ humans didn’t produce asexually, that they weren’t all carbon copies. 

 

But looking at this person in front of him was like looking through a mirror. 

 

Then he opened his mouth and spoke, and while the language that came through Galran, the undertones of a translator tickled Akira’s ears.  The underlying language was audible.  It was round and soft and bouncing. 

 

And Akira had heard it before.  There wasn’t a  doubt in his mind.

  
  


….

  
  


The nice thing about Akira being back was that Keith got a lot less attention.  Less glaring in the hallways, less murmuring behind his back, less talking about him over his head.  Spirits in the headquarters seemed to be lifted.  Antok walked lighter.  Kolivan didn’t look quite as close to snapping as he had previously.  Voices were louder and steps were quicker and it was like the base had woken up.  It was nice. The not-as-nice thing was that Antok was taking the job of watching him very seriously. 

 

He wasn’t locked up in the cell, at least, but every time he moved more than three feet away from Antok, he found a giant hand grabbing onto the hood of his Marmora uniform and yanking him back to his side.

 

It didn’t take long for him to figure out to stay close. 

 

After Kolivan, Thace, and Akira disappeared somewhere into the depths of the headquarters, Antok dragged Keith off to the mess hall with everyone else for morning meal. The meal was three strips of vinegar meat and something slimy, lumpy, and squirming.  Keith poked at the grey substance with a spork, and when Antok explained that “Gravraan worms are best raw,” he decided that he wasn’t actually hungry.

 

He’d willingly eat three servings of Coran’s space goo at this point, if only he could be that lucky.

 

After that, they spent some time on an observation deck.  Keith was sure Antok had more important things to be doing, being second in command at all.  It was all too secret for Keith to be involved in, though, and since no one else was eager to interact with the ‘strange little one’ (as they’d started referring to him), and Thace was busy with Akira’s return, Antok was the only one left to fill the duty.  Luckily, he didn’t seem to mind the break. 

 

The observation deck was similar to that in the Castle of Lions.  It was an elevated room with large windows looking over a training deck that Keith recognized from his own time in the Trials of Marmora.  Several people were down there, throwing each other around and sparring in a way that boasted intensity in playfulness- like when Lance practiced shooting things off their heads.  He  _ could _ do serious damage, but he wasn’t going to, not during a game.

 

They were all wearing masks and hoods, but Keith could tell by the way they moved that they had to be younger soldiers.

 

He watched them, tried to think about technique and flow and  _ not  _ about the paladins.  He watched them execute throws with a level of accuracy Keith envied, kicks that Keith’s taekwondo instructor would have wept over.  They moved like water together, taking turns being in the middle and fighting round about matches four-on-one. 

 

One sparrer was a great deal smaller than all the others, and it had to be Akira.  The top of his head barely reached the shortest Galra’s shoulders.  He used his smaller stature to his advantage, slipping out of holds and under strikes, launching himself into the air with height Keith could only dream of. 

 

Usually smaller opponents were supposed to be faster, but Keith had spent enough time training with Kolivan and Antok back home to know those rules didn’t apply in space.  At least not to the Blade of Marmora.  Even here, every sparrer moved with such speed that they almost seemed to blur.  Watching them all move together was mystifying. 

 

“He has trained since he was a child,” Antok said, entirely unprompted.  If he was anything like the Antok back home, the wrong response would quickly provoke him back to silence.  Keith hummed quietly, trying to sound interested, and hoped that was the right response. 

 

It was. 

 

“It is unprecedented to have children at the base,” he explained.  “And all members of the Blade of Marmora take an oath of celibacy to avoid accidents.  We only recruit those who are already of age to fight for the Empire.  But Akira’s mother betrayed her oath, and when she could not leave him behind on Earth, she brought him to us.” 

 

That was all it took, Keith supposed.  One choice splintering off into two separate worlds- a world where Keith was raised an orphan, and a world where he was raised a warrior. 

 

“How old was he?  When you got him?” 

 

Antok smiled distantly.  “In earth years, three.  There are few decapheebs left before he’s fully grown.” 

 

Alongside the Galra, there was definitely the illusion for room to grow.  But Keith could see obvious differences in the way Akira was built compared to himself.  He was taller, only by a few inches, but still.  His shoulders were broader, frame more muscular. He was built like someone who’d trained for hours on end every day of his life, and his moves were natural the way only a seasoned martial artist’s could be.  It was a result of different environments playing on their genetics- contrasting routines lead to different statures, an almost entirely carnivorous diet had lead to canines that were pointed and predatory instead of rounded and human, and had let Akira grow taller, 

 

Epigenetics were weird.

 

Secretly, Keith was still holding out for a final growth spurt.  He’d read somewhere that it could happen until he was twenty-one.  He’d never be as tall as Shiro or Hunk, but an extra inch would be appreciated. 

 

There were still more similarities than differences.  Akira’s hair was the same black, wavy and long.  His was long enough to braid, and he wore the braid the way Kolivan did back home, knotted tightly and secured around his neck under his mask.  

 

He had the same pale skin and narrowed eyes, and Keith hadn’t gotten a good look at him earlier, but his eyes were obviously dark.  Maybe they had the same mysterious purple tint that Keith had puzzled over his entire childhood.  Maybe not. 

 

All in all, it was a strange situation to be in.  Keith watched as the sparrers called an end to their match, peeling their masks off and throwing arms around each other.  Akira was smiling, bright and wide, and hanging off of one of the young Galra like he didn’t have a care in the world. 

 

Keith felt self-conscious and uncomfortable every time he touched somebody, but Akira hadn’t learned to be like that.  He’d grown up with an entire pack of people who loved him.  Thinking about it made Keith’s mouth go sour with jealousy.

 

A hand settling on his shoulder startled him into flinching.  If Antok noticed, he didn’t point it out. 

 

“It is just about time for the rendezvous,” he said.  “Come.” 

 

As if Keith had a choice when Antok dragged him along by his hood like a dog on a leash.  He stumbled over himself and skipped a bit to keep up.  “Rendezvous?” he asked. 

 

“To discuss Akira’s mission,” Antok explained.  “Every experience is a chance for knowledge.” 

 

“Knowledge or death,” Keith said, finding some melancholic comfort in the unforgiving phrase. 

 

Antok nodded once and hummed.  “Precicely.” 

 

Keith thought about facing ten opponents at a time during the trials of Marmora, of raising his Blade and knowing he was going to lose.  He thought about Kolivan jumping into the middle of battle and saving his ass, and he thought about fighting at his side.  He thought about panicking teammates, and blinding lights, and extraterrestrial hospital rooms.  He thought about getting home and wished he knew how. 

 

Knowledge or death, he reminded himself, and walked with Antok back into the great hall.  

  
  
  


…

  
  


Akira’s story was wild. 

 

He spun poetic about electrocuting atmospheres and planets of gas, of unresponsive communication systems and environmental forces that cut off his contact to the headquarters entirely.  They were always having trouble like that with the lions, or with Altean ships or the castles.  They really ought to be more careful with ten thousand year old technology.  Akira spoke like these technical errors came as a surprise. 

 

He explained crash landing on the planet he’d meant to be surveying and taking refuge in underground tunnels while the Galra searched the wreckage.  He told how he stole a ship and set course for home, only to get desperately lost among the stars.  He spent weeks living among a resistance force that was growing in number but wavering in strength.  He’d snuck into several Galra bases, by himself, without any sort of back up. 

 

And he’d made it out alive. 

 

Keith had been in space for well over a year now, but listening to Akira talk, it felt like he’d barely seen anything.  

 

Kolivan stood at the front of the room, flanked by Antok and several others.  The walls were lined with Galra, and those who didn’t fit the lines were at the back of the room in rows, down on one knee, listening.  Akira once against stood in the center of the room and addressed the crowd, but this time it was not an apology.  It was an explanation. 

 

They all regarded him silently, Kolivan listening with laser focus, taking in every word Akira said. 

 

Akira addressed him as “leader” instead of “father.” 

 

Keith couldn’t imagine calling Kolivan either of those things. 

 

He stood along the wall at Thace’s side, squeezed in between him and another towering Galra in a place where they could clearly keep an eye on him.  He did his best to stay still, remembering drill sergeants at the Garrison who could call them to attention and leave them to stand for an hour.  If they moved, the clock started over.  After several rounds of that, the self-control was nearly effortless, the same way the Blade of Marmora made it look currently. 

 

Keith let his mind wander, listening to Akira’s story with half of his attention.  He was just starting to relax when the mood shifted irrevocably.  It felt like it dropped ten degrees.

 

Akira said, “The strangest part was the lions,” and it was like the room itself was holding its breath. 

 

Kolivan straightened more, and he wasn’t wearing his mask, so Keith could see him narrow his eyes.  

 

“Lions?” he asked, voice suspicious.  Keith was plagued with a sudden wave of nausea.  

 

“They call the weapon ‘Voltron,’” Akira answered with a vague shrug.  “There are five lions, apparently, but they have yet to find the Blue one.  I am not sure what their significance is, but the ships fly with accuracy like that I’ve never seen.  I heard rumblings that they form some sort of weapon.  The most powerful weapon in the universe.” 

 

Keith fixed his eyes on the floor and tried to keep his heart from pounding out of his chest.  His ribs ached again, suddenly, and his chest felt tight, like he couldn’t breathe.  Kolivan’s eyes burned holes in the side of his head.  Thace stiffened beside him. 

 

“It is a weapon for the Empire?” Kolivan asked.  

 

“Yes, sir.  Run by druid magic, is my best guess.” 

 

There was no mistaking the sound that escaped Kolivan’s throat at that comment, a low, threatening,  _ furious _ growl.  “A weapon by the druids,” he said, and it was obvious from his tone of voice that he was no longer speaking to Akira.  “I knew it.” 

 

Keith spared a glance upwards and wished he hadn’t.  Kolivan was marching right in his direction, Blade at his side, eyes like murder.  Keith considered running and found his legs wouldn’t move.  Stuck between the two Galra and outnumbered fifty to one, he had no escape.

 

“I knew it,” Kolivan repeated, louder.  He reached Keith and loomed over him, and Keith bumped into someone tall and unmoving when he took a nervous step backwards.  Thace siezed his arms, pinned them behind his back.  Kolivan grabbed Keith by the front of his uniform and pulled him up on his toes, stooping to be nose-to-nose.  Off balance and with his arms trapped, Keith was totally incapacitated. Kolivan glared directly into his eyes.  Keith tried not to squirm. 

 

“Father!” Akira said, somewhere behind the brick wall that was Kolivan.  “What are you doing?”

 

When Kolivan answered, he did it as if spitting acid.  “This one appeared to us in a burst of light.  A  _ lion _ falling through a portal of unmasked energy.  He speaks of Voltron.  He speaks of realities.  You  _ liar _ !”  

 

Kolivan quickly switched from talking to shouting, from explaining to Akira to accusing Keith.  With that word echoing through his ears, Keith found himself swinging through the air, ripped out of Thace’s bruising grip, and thrown to the floor.  

 

He hit the floor hard and rolled, and years of experience had him stumbling to his feet and into a defensive stance from memory.  He wasn’t a defensive fighter, but he hadn’t started this fight.  

 

“You come to our home, wear the mask of our child, and try to fool us with your empty lies!” Kolivan roared, stalking forward.  Keith scrambled backwards, and other Galra moved out of the way until it was just Keith and Kolivan and the wall behind them.  Kolivan grabbed Keith by the throat and slammed him back, and Ketih’s vision danced with stars. He choked, clawing at Kolivan’s arm and panicking at the loss of air.  Kolivan held his Blade up and squeezed. 

 

“You’re a trick from the druids!” Kolivan shouted.  “A clone.  A  _ trap _ !” 

 

“N-no!” Keith choked out in a voice he didn’t recognize.  

 

“Knowledge or death.  I ought to  _ kill you _ for your betrayal!” 

 

Kolivan pressed him back tighter, and his massive hand knocked Keith’s helmet ascue, cutting off the connection to the translators.  The static went silent.  Keith’s ears roared with rushing blood.

 

In that moment, Keith was beyond certain that he was going to die.  He’d go out at the hands of someone who was supposed to be family, accused of being a liar and betraying them by existing.  Keith couldn’t breath.  His vision danced black.  He kicked weakly against Kolivan but struck nothing.  His grip was loosening, muscles giving up as his lungs burned-

 

And then he was hitting the ground, and everything rushed back in a gasp. 

 

“Kolivan!” that was Antok’s voice shouting, but Keith couldn’t pay attention to what was happening above him, too busy clutching his throat and gulping in air.  Breathing was excruciating.  His head swam.  He was seconds away from throwing up.  

 

He doubled over his knees and dropped his head to the floor as he gasped.  Kolivan and Antok were raging above him, two growling voices in an unintelligible roar.  His helmet was on the floor somewhere nearby, but Keith couldn’t get his head together enough to look for it.  He glanced up and saw Antok pulling Kolivan back, saw both of their faces contorted with rage. 

 

Other Galra stood off to the side uncomfortably, looking ready to jump in but unsure of their right to.  

 

Akira stood in the center of the room, eyes wide, mouth gaping, staring directly at Keith.  Keith diverted his eyes, swallowed the bile rising in his throat, and attempted to shove his way upright.

 

As soon as he tried, something grabbed ahold of his arm and yanked him far too quickly to his feet. Keith saw starbursts as the room spun. 

 

Kolivan shouted something, an  _ order _ , and shoved Keith at somebody else. Two sets of hands latched onto his arms and held him tight, lifting him off his feet and holding him too tight to allow struggling.  Keith still tried kicking out against him, and he found someone else at his feet, locking his ankles together. 

 

He kicked and fought and tried to scream as they pinned his wrists together behind his back and shoved him off balance.  Having no way to catch himself, he crashed into the floor.  His ribs screamed at him in reawakened agony.  Voices talked above him, but he couldn’t understand him.  He tasted blood. 

 

Kolivan stood over him, eight feet of intimidation, scowling like Keith was the worst thing he’d ever seen.  He was no longer screaming as he spoke, one simple, too calm command, and then there were hands on him again, lifting him into the air and carrying him off down the hallway.  Down several hallways, into the cold, dark place he’d been before.  Struggling against them did no use.  Keith had no way of fighting back as they dropped him into his previous cell and slammed the door behind him. 

 

Instantly the magnets on his restraints gave way and released him, and Keith used that bit of freedom to get back to his feet and slam both fists against the door.  The enraged scream that ripped its way from his destroyed throat holding no words and sounding barely human. 

 

It wasn’t until then that the weight of Akira’s story hit him.  

 

In this reality, the Empire controlled the lions, and they knew about forming Voltron.  They had one more Lion to collect.  The Blue Lion. 

 

On Earth. 

 

Keith had to get out of here.  He had to get to Black, and he had to get  _ home _ .  Who knows what they’d do to the Black Lion after the damnation that came from Akira’s story, if it was even still  _ there _ . 

 

They’d taken his armor and his weapons.  They’d taken his means of communication and  his dignity.  But taking the lion was the last straw.  Everything rested on that. 

 

Keith kicked the door once, twice, three times until the ache in his foot drowned out the ache in his ribs, then he limped to the corner of the room and collapsed on the makeshift bed there. 

 

“Come on, Black,” he whispered.  “I need help, buddy.   _ Please _ .” 

 

Black was silent. 

 

Keith was aching in more places than he could count.  

 

Breathing still laboured, he gave into the urge to close his eyes, and though he lost consciousness, he certainly didn’t sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter! 
> 
> Then it'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming with the (mostly) light hearted DoM oneshots. I have a few prompts that ya'll mentioned in the comments, but as always, talk to me and throw ideas at me. 
> 
> Thanks for reading :)


	5. The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Aren’t you going to get in trouble for this?” Keith asked him. Akira looked back at Keith and smiled, then winked, and yeah. They were definitely different people, then, even if they were supposed to be the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> READING YOUR GUYS’ COMMENTS IS KIND OF MY FAVORITE THING, CAUSE SOME OF YOU ARE REALLY ON POINT WITH WHERE THIS IS GOING, AND SOME OF YOU ARE JUST SCREAMING, AND LIKE 90% OF YOU WANT KEITH’S KOLIVAN/ANTOK TO TRAVEL INTO THIS UNIVERSE AND KICK SOME ASS, AND JUST. YOU GUYS ARE FUN AS HELL. LOVIN IT.

The risk of the Empire intercepting their messages was a very real one that wore heavy on everyone’s minds.  For the most part, when you went out on a mission, you went alone.  Outside of a too small radius surrounding the headquarters, it was just too dangerous to send information through open space.

 

Kolivan had already stretched that rule farther than anyone was comfortable with when Akira had gone on his mission, and he’d spent the better part of his disappearance killing himself over the thought that Akira had been taken because of that communication line. 

 

The situation being what it was, Thace didn’t say nearly as much as he wanted to in the message he shot off to Ulaz.  It was a simple, three beat code that signalled for him to return.  He couldn’t say anything more than that- not that Akira was safe, not that the base was in turmoil, nothing that mattered. 

 

But Ulaz would see.  He would come home, and he would cope.  He was good at that.  Thace would stand back in the shadows and let Kolivan do what he felt was necessary.  God knows Thace didn’t have any higher moral guidance of his own. 

 

Kolivan could deal with it.  Thace could stay out of the way and go about his business, training and working and thanking every star that their son had come home to them, adverse circumstances aside.

  
  


…

  
  


Now that Keith was officially public enemy number one- something he’d heard Lance say before, probably a quote from a movie Keith had never seen.  Lance liked all kinds of cheesy action movies, even though their life had turned into an action movie.  Keith would think he’d be sick of them by now.  He’d be wrong.

 

Now that Keith was officially public enemy number one, instead of just  _ potentially _ , they no longer seemed to care about feeding him.  While telling time was challenging at best, he knew he’d been in his cell long enough that night had fallen over the base.  If he listened closely, he could hear the sounds of the training deck somewhere above him.  It had been silent for quite a while.  The entire base was. 

 

The last food he’d seen was breakfast, and Keith started to regret not eating those worms now that his stomach was growling. 

 

On the bright side, his initial injuries were nearly healed.  His ribs ached, yeah, but it was a dull throb instead of a bright and blinding fire.  The headache he had was either from dehydration, stress, or the number of times he’d hit his head earlier that day.  His throat was bruised- he could tell by the pinching pain that came every time he swallowed, and by the tenderness that came from exploring the skin with gentle fingertips. 

 

But compared to the first time around, Keith was right as rain.  His knuckles had scabbed over where they’d split a day or two ago, and his foot hurt in a way that warned him not to kick anymore doors, but didn’t speak of actual injury. 

 

He was doing pretty good. 

 

Everything sucked.

 

The Blade of Marmora uniform covered a lot more skin than the hospital gown had, and while Keith appreciated modesty, it wasn’t much warmer.  He yearned for his paladin armor, which had apparently spoiled him with its temperature regulation and padding. 

 

Now it was just him, a thin layer of fabric, and a vaguely thrumming slab of stone that passed as a bed.

 

The base was silent, his cell was too dark to see, and the sensory deprivation was starting to drive Keith crazy.  That’s why, when something started growling in the middle of the night, Keith was almost convinced he was hallucinating. 

 

His first thought had actually been, ‘ _ Huh.  Growling.  Weird.’ _

 

His second thought was ‘ _ Great, Kogane, you’ve finally lost your mind.’ _

 

His third thought was a lightning bolt of anxiety, as his brain pieced together,  _ ‘Wait, fuck, there’s something in the room with me.’ _

 

But the room was tiny.  There wasn’t room for something big enough to growl that loudly.  Even so, he couldn’t be sure.  He scrambled to his feet, standing tucked into the corner of his shelf of a bed and squinting around the room, heart hammering with adrenaline. 

 

He had nothing to defend himself.  Just him and the stone and whatever was in there with him.  So Keith tightened his fists and stayed close to the walls as he made his way around the perimeter of the room.  

 

Nothing, empty.  Keith felt like an idiot, but the growling persisted.  It was strange, sounding both like it was somewhere down the hallway and like Keith was the one that was growling.  He thought he was imagining it, that his mind had actually broken or his ears were just making things up to cope with the lack of stimulation. 

 

But the growling kept up, growing louder and  _ louder _ , and then a voice Keith had never heard before interrupted the growling. 

 

“ _ It’s time _ ,” the voice said, more inside Keith’s head than out loud, and the abruptness of the words startled him into stumbling.  He leaned his weight back against the wall, chest heaving in panic, as it all came together. 

 

That was the voice of the Black Lion. 

 

_ It’s time _ , she said, but time for  _ what _ ?  To go, probably, and here Keith was locked up in a cell.  If Black was anything like Red, she would have already blasted through the walls of the base and tracked her down herself.  But Black was different.  Black didn’t want to protect him; she wanted him not to need her to.  She wanted a leader who formulated plans and plotted escapes and could save himself. 

 

She wanted someone like Shiro. 

 

Keith had to wonder if he would ever stop being inadequate.

 

“ _ It’s time _ ,” the Black Lion said again, this time barking like a command, reminding Keith of every instructor he’d had at the Garrison. 

 

“A little help, please?” he responded, voice foreign in the otherwise quiet room, and that was how Keith realized the growling was  _ entirely _ inside his head. 

 

No help came, but then again, Keith didn’t expect it to.  Fucking lions.  Fucking space.  Fucking bullshit-

 

The sound of footsteps coming down the hall caught his attention and cut him off mid rant. 

 

“Sorry,” he mumbled, feeling foolish but not wanting the Black Lion to change her mind about getting them out of there. As the footsteps grew closer, Keith crept across the room and crouched down next to the door, praying and hoping that whoever it was intended on opening it. 

 

He was lucky, but only for about three seconds.  The door cracked open and Keith launched himself at it.  But just like that, Keith became very unlucky very fast.  The person who opened the door was ready and waiting, and they used Keith’s momentum to swing him around and throw them right back through the door. They hit the ground hard, and Keith got the wind knocked out of him as the other person landed with his full force against Keith’s chest and planted is forearm against Keith’s throat.  One of his hands had Keith’s arm twisted up painfully behind his head and trapped there, and both legs were hooked tightly with Keith’s own, locking him in place and rendering him entirely immobile. 

 

A pale face smirked down at him, mere inches away from his own.  He was wearing his helmet, and Keith’s breath fogged up on the glass. “I knew you would try and do that,” he said, not even breathing hard.  Keith pulled his lip back and snarled, and Akira, the mother fucker, actually had the gall to laugh. 

 

“Get off of me,” Keith snapped, struggling against Akira and earning him a elbow to the throat for his efforts.  

 

He choked.  Akira stared him down evenly before easing back. 

 

“I have come to help, but you have to behave” he said, voice irritated and an estranged version of Keith’s own.  The pitch was spot on, but the inflection was just wrong. 

 

After the week Keith had, he wasn’t in the mood to cooperate, and he certainly wasn’t ready to trust him.  He glared up at the copycat with as much vehemence as he could muster and asked, “Why would you want to help me?”

 

Akira’s expression softened.  His grip eased up a little bit as he opened his mouth to speak, but Keith had learned to seize opportunities in situations like this.  As soon as he had the slightest bit of wiggle room, he ripped his hand out of Akira’s grip and kicked one foot free.  He planted his foot on the ground and shoved, rolling them over and gaining the upper hand.

 

He should have known Akira would be better at this than him.  It seemed almost effortless, the way he rolled them again, wrenched Keith’s arm behind his back, and slammed him face first into the floor.  Keith groaned.  Akira huffed out a breath that sounded almost like a swear. 

 

“ _ Work with me _ ,” he ground out.  It was weird to hear his own frustrated voice ordering him around, but Keith’s life hadn’t stopped being weird since he flew through that damned portal. 

 

He couldn’t win this fight.  He knew that.  As much as he hated it, Keith had no choice but to give up the struggle and go limp in Akira’s grip.  “Fine,” he breathed out.  “Fine, okay.” 

 

“Okay?” Akira asked. 

 

Keith mouth tasted like blood.  He spit against the stone.  “Okay.” 

 

“My father is wrong,” was what Akira chose to say next, throwing Keith for a loop.  He looked back over his shoulder as best as he could and saw Akira’s face full of grim determination.  He didn’t make the mistake of loosening his grip this time as he started to talk.  “I do not think you are a Druid trick.  I spent time in an Empire ship.  I have seen their work, and you are not it.” 

 

“Finally someone believes me,” Keith said.  Akira nodded once, quickly. 

 

“The Druids strive for perfection,” he said, and some small part of Keith’s brain registered that as an insult.  The louder part didn’t care.  “You’re too fragile,” Akira added, and that was  _ definitely _ an insult.  “Too… real.  It is like looking in the mirror, but my reflection is wrong.” 

 

The hand that wasn’t pinning Keith firmly to the floor dragged a knuckle down the side of Keith’s face, and Keith found himself flinching away by reflex.  Akira pulled his hand back, and he made a noise like a frown. 

 

“You are scared of touch?” he asked.  After the week’s events, Keith figured he had every right to be.  He wanted to be able to blame it on this alternate reality. 

 

Keith also wanted to insist that he wasn’t scared of  _ anything _ , but honestly, it wasn’t worth getting into this argument with himself, even if this self was tangible instead of imaginary. 

 

Hell, maybe Akira  _ was _ imaginary.  Maybe Keith had snapped a while ago, when he’d gone into that portal, and every event following had been part of his psychotic break, or a fever dream.

 

“ _ Focus _ ,” the Black Lion demanded in his head, voice impatient and scolding.  “ _ No time. _ ”

 

Akira flinched.  “The Lion wants us to hurry,” he said, and Keith’s eyes grew wide with shock. 

 

“You can hear her?” 

 

“She sent me.  You need to leave, before the leader makes a decision we will all regret.  If I let you up, will you stop attacking me?” 

 

When Keith asked his next question, he wanted to punch himself in the face for his stupidity, but he also needed to know.  “Why do you trust me?”  

 

Akira looked uncomfortable as he answered.  “When I was with the Empire, I got close to the lions.  The Red one spoke to me, in my head, like the Black one is now.  She kept saying the same thing.  ‘You’re not mine, but you could be.’  She said ‘find him,’ and then I met you.  You have to be the one she was talking about.” 

 

Keith nodded at that, as best as he could with his face still pressed to the floor.  “Yes,” he practically gasped, overwhelmed with relief.  “Yes.  In my reality, I am the red paladin.  Voltron fights against the Empire.  I have to get back to them.” 

 

“Then we need to go,” Akira said.  “And you need to cooperate.” 

 

“Okay.” 

 

This time when Akira let him go, Keith didn’t strike out against him.  He simply hauled himself to his feet and accepted his helmet when Akira handed it over.  

 

“Your armor is not here, but we can retrieve it on the way,” Akira said. 

 

“ _ Go _ ,” the Black Lion commanded. 

 

Keith gave a nod.  “Let’s go.” 

 

Akira’s footsteps were silent as they sprinted down the halls, and Keith did his best to mimic him.  The halls were empty.  Apparently Akira knew the night guard’s schedule, knew how to sneak around him.  Just like the Garrison, then.  It was almost a right of passage, learning to sneak past the guards at night. 

 

It was a longer journey than Keith anticipated, and several times he had to skid to a stop to avoid colliding with Akira’s back when the other boy stopped suddenly. They made it through the halls though, hushed voices and silent steps, the dark lights glowing vaguely, like a dream. 

 

Keith’s heart pounded erratically when Akira stopped them outside of Kolivan’s office and left Keith alone in the hallway to “keep watch, and if anyone sees you,  _ run _ .”  Keith certainly hoped his own leadership style wasn’t this nerve-wracking, but he had a feeling it was just as bad.  Probably worse. 

But seconds passed without tragedy, and then Akira was slipping back out the door, a bundle gathered under his arm.  He grabbed onto Keith’s wrist and tugged as he took off running again.  Keith jerked his hand away and ran after him. 

 

“I cannot open the doors, so the Lion will have to blast them free,” Akira said as they scrambled into the hangar.  In the center of the room, surrounded by repurposed ships in every design Keith had seen and a few he hadn’t, stood the Black Lion.  Her eyes gleamed and stabbed straight through Keith.  The growling picked up again, loud and intense in Keith’s head, quiet in the room. 

 

Akira and him must have been the only ones who could hear it.  Nobody else had any clue what was going on. 

 

“You escape, I need to go back,” Akira said, shoving the bundle of armor into Keith’s arms and giving him a hearty push towards the Black Lion.  Keith tripped into it and caught himself.  Akira was already making his way back towards the door. 

 

“Aren’t you going to get in trouble for this?” Keith asked him.  Akira looked back at Keith and smiled, then winked, and yeah.  They were definitely different people, then, even if they were supposed to be the same. 

“You going to tell on me?” he asked, voice teasing, sounding a hell of a lot like young Shiro, and a good deal like Pidge.  The two were rather similar, now that Keith thought about it.  He’d have to consider that more later. 

 

“Thank you!” Keith said, voice a hushed shout in the echoing room.  

 

“Be at peace,” Akira called after him.  “And good luck.” 

 

Then he ran out of the room, and Keith took off towards the Black Lion.  She crouched down, opening her hatch and allowing him in.  He sprinted up the ramp and settled into the pilot’s seat.  He’d worry about his armor later.  For now, he curled his hands around the controls and closed his eyes to center himself.

 

“Alright, time to go,” he said to Black, and she whipped around, blasted a flaming whole in the hangar door, and flew off into the depths of space. 

  
  
  


…

  
  


The world was full of fire.  The last world had been ice, and the one before that had stars that whipped past so fast it made Keith’s head spin.  Black opened her mouth and roared, and another portal opened before them.  For the fourth time since their escape, Black plunged in headfirst, throwing them into yet another world. 

 

“ _ Trust me _ ,” she kept saying.  “ _ I know the way.  We will get home _ .” 

 

“ _ I can sense the others.” _

 

“ _ We are close. _ ”

 

“ _ Trust me. _ ” 

 

Keith wanted to.  He tried his best to.  Every reality they entered offered new marvels, but the g-forces and energy shock were enough to make him sick.  His stomach tossed with nausea, and his head swam just like the first time around.  He clutched onto Black’s controls and did everything within his power to stay conscious.  He wasn’t doing much to fly the Black Lion; he wasn’t even sure how she was doing what she was doing with the portals.  

 

But it was all or nothing, it seemed.  Either Keith was in control, or he wasn’t. 

 

They reappeared somewhere in a cloud, a blank sheet of water swirling around them in every direction and doing nothing to aid Keith’s disorientation.  His head spun, and his eyes burned from the frequent flashes of blinding light. 

 

As they jumped realities like a stone skipping across a pond, Keith struggled more and more to keep a grip on where they were, what reality meant in that moment.  He started to doubt that they would ever actually make it home. 

 

“ _ Trust me, _ ” the Black lion said, voice more of a purr than a command this time around.  “ _ Rest, young paladin. You must learn to relinquish control.” _

 

That had never been something Keith was good at, but the Black Lions words hit him like a sedative.  His eyelids grew heavy and fell shut, and all the fight flooded out of him as he sagged in the pilot’s seat.  Against his will, and for the first time in days, he actually relaxed.  He felt the Black Lion jump through another portal, felt her purrs reverberating in his chest, and trusted her to get them home.

  
  


…

  
  


“ _ Oh thank God he’s alive _ !” 

 

The first thing Keith saw when he opened his eyes was Pidge.  There was something cold pressing against the pulse point in his neck, and he figured out it was her when he watched her pull her hand away.  

 

“Keith!” A familiar voice-  _ Hunk’s _ voice- shouted, and it was quickly joined by Lance’s.

 

“Where have you been!?”

 

“You jerk!” Pidge exclaimed, actually clambering onto the pilot seat with him and wrapping her arms around him tight enough that he couldn’t breathe. 

 

“Give him some space, Pidge,” Lance said. 

 

Hunk quite literally shoved him out of the way and pulled both Keith and Pidge up into a group hug.  Lance gave up his resistant at that and latched onto the three of them like the clingy spider monkey that he was, and Keith was still pretty confused by the whole thing, but he was present enough to realize everyone was crying. 

 

He blinked a few times and looked around.  Hunk, Lance, Pidge…. He saw Coran and Allura standing just a few feet away, looking hopeful and heartbroken at the same time.  Coran caught his eye and smiled wide. 

 

“Good to see you again, number four!” he exclaimed, and when Hunk finally let them all go, Coran was quick to step in and throw an arm around Keith’s shoulders.  “Step back, give him space.  Where are you hurt?  Can you rate your pain?” 

 

“Nothing serious,” Keith said, voice coming out gravely and strange.  “I’m fine.” 

 

“We still ought to get you into a pod,” Allura said. 

 

“Where have you been?” Hunk asked, and Pidge was quick to jump in, clinging to Hunk’s arm and kind of peeking out behind him. 

 

“Yeah! What happened to you!?” 

 

“Was it space pirates?” Lance asked.

 

“Walk and talk, paladins.  The sooner we get to the med bay, the better,” Coran ushered them all along, and Keith noticed the way the others stuck close to him, moving in a small crowd.  Maybe they were afraid he was a fall risk.  Maybe they were waiting for him to vanish into thin air. 

 

He let their voices wash over him in a din of over-excited chatter as they made their way out of the Black Lion.  Their first steps echoed against the metallic floor of the main hangar, and movement across the room pulled Keith more into the present.  Kolivan and Antok stood there, eyes wide and staring right at Keith.  Kolivan visibly perked up.  Antok stood a little straighter. 

 

Keith stopped so suddenly that Lance bumped into his back. 

 

“Dude,” Lance complained, but Keith didn’t spare him any mind.  He couldn’t seem to breathe. 

 

Kolivan rushed forward, and every memory from the past week rushed over Keith like a bad dream.  He took a stumbling step backwards, bumping straight into Lance’s chest.  Lance put his hands on Keith’s upper arms to steady him, a startled noise coming out of his mouth, but his hands felt like shocks of electricity and his voice sounded booming.  Keith’s ears rushed with blood.  His breathing grew shallow.  He knew what a panic attack felt like, knew he was on the verge of one, but he didn’t know how to stop it. 

 

Someone was calling his name.  Kolivan slowed to a stop and cocked his head ever so slightly to the side, wondering what was wrong.  Keith was going to throw up, or he was going to pass out, or-

 

“ _ Trust me _ ,” the volume of the voice took up every scrap of space in Keith’s head and chased away the panic.  Keith glanced back at the Black Lion, found her silent and watching.  “ _ Trust me,” _ she repeated, and another voice purred in the back of Keith’s mind. 

 

“ _ Mine _ ,” said the Red Lion.  It was like a breath of fresh air, like diving into a cool lake of water.  His panic subsided, while the urgency in his chest swelled to a climax.  He shrugged Lance’s arms off of him and took off across the room as fast as his exhausted legs could carry him.  He made it across the room in seconds and crashed into Kolivan at full force, which was somehow enough to make the Galra stumble back a step, off-balance. 

 

Keith wrapped his arms around him and held on like his life depended on it.  He registered Pidge’s voice behind him saying, “Whoa,” and he wanted to be embarrassed.  He wanted to hate himself for it, but then Kolivan wrapped him up in a smothering hug and Keith felt the last traces of anxiety fade out of him. 

 

“Be at peace,” Kolivan said, voice quiet.  Keith clutched onto him tighter and pretended there weren’t tears streaming down his face.  “Glad to have you home, cub.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ik this is Dads of Marmora, but let's have a moment for the ultimate space dad- Coran. It's canon that he calls Lance "my boy" right? And I'm almost certain he's referred to them as "the young paladins," and of course there's the number system. Anyways, cooky nicknames, right? Lance likes it because it reminds him of home. You know who REALLY appreciates it though? Mr. Keith Abandonment Issues Kogane. Idk what to do with these thoughts, but I feel like there's potential somewhere. 
> 
> I'm gonna go through and respond to comments tonight :) didn't trust myself to do it before, because I didn't wanna give anything away, but now we're good to go.
> 
> Thanks for reading !!!


	6. Not The End, Actually

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter exists to let you know that the next part of the Dads of Marmora, (Do You See What I See) is actually an alternate ending for this fic. 
> 
> WHOA I know. But like, I had this beautiful story arc all written out. Then I read all your comments, and listened to Dance with the Devil too many times, and now my head is full of ideas. So, for all intents and purposes, this fic can stop at chapter five. But, if you're not satisfied with that, the way I am also not, the alternate ending picks up right after Keith agrees to let Akira break him out of the Blade of Marmora headquarters. 
> 
> Here's a taste. Check out the full fic here https://archiveofourown.org/works/12300840

“Your armor is not here,” Akira said, standing up properly and pulling Keith up off the floor with him. Keith shrugged him off roughly as soon as he had his feet back underneath him. His behavior was strange, but now was not the time to ponder it. Not with that voice roaring in his head, demanding that they depart now.

 

Keith spoke like an echo of the lion, giving a nod as he said, “Let’s go.”

 

They took off down the hallway, Keith’s steps making too much noise as he sprinted after Akira. This hallway would be empty for another few quintents assuming the Blade on patrol that night stuck to the schedule. But while the Blade was known for their strict adherence to protocol, they were also known for being wildly unpredictable. This whole situation had Akira nervous and on edge. 

 

He had to pause occasionally, skidding to a stop before turning corners with Keith narrowly avoiding running into his back every time. He was so clumsy. But Keith never actually ran into him or fell over, and Antok supposed he should be thankful for that. It wasn’t long before they reached the door to the Leader’s office, and Akira threw a hand out to signal they were stopping. 

 

They came to a stop and Akira slipped his hand through the gap in the door, a result of the writing utensil he’d jammed in their earlier to leave the office unlocked. He’d been planning to sneak back in there and scour for information about their new prisoner, but the voice calling to him had different plans.

 

It sounded just like the lion ships that had talked to him on the Empire base. The words he’d heard there had been haunting him, sticking in his head like a catchy song playing over and over again, like the ones from Thace’s old files that he’d broken out on occasion when Akira was young.

 

The voice said that Keith had to go, it was now or never, and Akira needed to help him. Something felt wrong about keeping him locked up there, anyways. It wasn’t just the frightening resemblance or the fact that Keith was the first human they’d had at the base in Akira’s lifetime. It was the look of pure desperation on his face when Kolivan settled his fate, when he’d called him a liar.

 

Akira loved and respected his father, but the Leader was stubborn and far too cautious. If he wouldn’t let Keith go because of some stupid principle or fear, then Akira would do it himself.

 

The voice speaking to him reverberated with wisdom beyond any of their lifetimes, and when it came down to it, Akira knew who he had to obey.

 

If they could get away with this without the Blades finding out, even better. That was the plan.


End file.
